


As Boundless As the Sea

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Interspecies Romance, Light Bondage, M/M, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Tentacle Dick, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, alien!jensen, i just really like tentacles ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:06:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: Jensen is an Engelon, a species whose home planet was drained of all its resources and abandoned thousands of years ago. Now what remains of their collective live in a large spaceship that travels between galaxies in order to find, conquer and drain new planets and their inhabitants of the one precious substance they need to survive: water. Engelons don’t feel anything except for greed, thirst and hatred for all creatures that stand in their way—except for Jensen. Always the odd alien out, Jensen has tried to keep his yearnings and emotions buried, but when his collective discovers a big blue planet called Earth, everything changes.Jensen is assigned the task of observing humanity, learning their ways and customs. When Jensen unintentionally takes a human form, his fellow Engelons have finally had enough. They cast him down to Earth, far from any ocean, where it is assumed he will die without access to water. But Jensen is rescued by Jared, a man who lives alone on the farm Jensen was dropped on. Jared has lost everything he ever held dear but he has not lost his kindness or his willingness to help a very strange stranger in need.Or: The Epic Love Story of Jensen Tentackles and Farmboy!Jared





	As Boundless As the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of my 2013 [spn_j2_bigbang](https://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/) originally posted [here](https://infatuated-ink.livejournal.com/86261.html). With art by [blythechild](https://blythechild.livejournal.com/) found [here](http://blythechild.livejournal.com/553667.html). See LJ for more notes.

**JENSEN**

The first thing he notices when he awakens is the pure smell of water nearby. He turns his head to the left, finding that he feels no pain, and sees a cup resting on a small table with a larger pitcher, also full of water, next to it.

He thinks this may be a very kind hallucination. He takes the glass first, emptying it in moments and letting it drop to the floor, paying little attention to the sound of glass shattering as he seizes the pitcher instead. That keeps him busy a little while longer. It takes him about half a minute to drain the container dry.

"Wow," he hears from somewhere nearby. It comes from his right, opposite of where the water is, so of course he didn't think to look there.

His mental databanks have been programmed to translate all of the languages used by the speaking creatures on this planet. From what he can tell, 'wow' is a statement of shock or awe, not terribly meaningful without context. He has no previous contact with this species to judge what the cause for shock or awe might be in this moment.

He turns to look at the human; that is what they call themselves, humans. Beautiful creatures, and this one is no exception. It's a male, taller than average, with pigmentation ranking at about .74 on the spectrum of his species, according to the system of analysis the Engelons categorize them by. It is smiling. "Awfully thirsty for someone who nearly swallowed a river."

Thirsty. According to the translation his databanks procure, the correct response to the observation that he is 'thirsty' would be 'no shit,' but he decides to focus on the more fascinating issue at hand. River. That must have been what saved him. The cool slip of running water, appearing from nowhere, cut right into the land.

When his brethren dropped him onto this planet, leaving him to die from lack of water, they must have never imagined a thing as glorious as a river could possibly exist. He certainly never would have. He was halfway to dying of starvation when he found the damn thing, and he'd still been so mesmerized he had hovered on the edge of it for a few precious moments, wondering if it was a trick. But he was in too much agony to really question it. If it was a trap, he would die just the same as if it wasn't.

So he took the chance, crawled in and let himself shut down, still in too much distress to function correctly. He trusted his body to recover once he was immersed, so he blacked out and, judging by the fact that he's not dead, the water did its work.

How it led to him waking up inside of some human's house, propped up in what seems to be a very large version of a sleep capsule—a bed, his translator supplies, they call them beds—he does not know. "How did I get here?"

"I found you floating face down in the river about a third of a mile down," the human says, pointing as if that's going to supply any useful information. "I thought you'd drowned."

 _Drowned_. He hears the word unfiltered in the human's native tongue. He searches through his databanks again, but he knows it's in vain. There's no translation available for the word 'drowned.'

"What is drowned?"

The man seems to be angered by the question. "C'mon, are you fucking with me? You know damn well what drowned means."

He shakes his head, so the human tries to explain, "When you get caught in water and go under and there's no air to breathe."

They have so much water here they can be swallowed up by it. This really is a paradise. "Drowned is a good thing?" he asks, just to clarify, because the man had sounded worried.

"Not really." The human laughs softly and shakes his head as if in disbelief. "You die if you can't get oxygen."

"But there's water?"

"Yes, there's lots of water."

He nods. "I think I would like to drown."

The man frowns, his eyes flashing strangely as he takes steps closer to the bed. "I was worried that might be how you got in there." He pauses for a long time. "Well, if you decide to try again, would you mind not using my river? Not a big fan of fishing bodies out. And it was so stressful trying to save you the first time, I just don't think I could handle it again."

Yes, he had wondered about that. "Why did you pull me out?"

The human's face changes then to an expression he can hardly identify. Is it sadness? Compassion? He'd observed these faces on screens, but the effect is much more powerful up close. "Why don't you want to be saved?"

"I'm not worth the effort you expended," he reasons, which is true. He's never once in his life pulled his weight, and the man might have lost time and precious hydrogen with the effort of pulling his body out and bringing him here and keeping him alive. "It was a waste of your potential."

"What's your name?" he asks.

The question is both unrelated to the topic at hand and foreign. Names are for weak species, for creatures that form attachments. The Engelons have no names; they are all cogs on a bigger machine. Faceless, impersonal limbs belonging to a better body than they could ever hope to achieve alone. But the man does not know this, and he's expecting an answer.

They did have a word for him, or maybe it was more of a curse. It meant broken, defective, unproductive. "Jensen."

The man must not know anything at all. He smiles kindly and says, "That's a nice name," and Jensen clearly deserved the insult as much as they always told him he did, because that smile makes him proud to have a name.

"I'm Jared." Jared takes another step and grabs Jensen's hand. "It's nice to finally meet you. You've been here for two days. I thought for a while—" Jensen watches Jared's throat work as he swallows. "I thought you might not wake up."

"I'm awake now. And I'm sorry for the trouble I caused you."

Jared bites his bottom lip and nods. "Do you have family I can call? I didn't want to get anyone else involved in case you—I was studying medicine for a while and you seemed like you just needed a little R&R, so I thought it might be better in the end if I waited to talk to you before sending you off."

Jensen shakes his head. The thought of leaving presents a dull ache of disappointment. He has studied these creatures for so long that finally being able to act out all the rituals of their language feels like a rare gift in Jensen's life. He never actually expected to meet a human, though he quietly dreamed of what it might be like.

He laughs, though the sound comes out rather cruel, as he realizes he has his brethren to thank for making this wish come true. They’d meant for him to die, die in agony, because of his fascination for these creatures. Now he has gotten to speak with one instead. "My family will not want to hear from me," he says. "They cast me out. I'll just return to the river."

"Don't do that," Jared says, his voice much softer than it has been since they first began speaking. "Jensen, you've got a home here as long as you promise it'll keep you out of rivers."

Jensen can't blame the man for not wanting to let a stranger live off his water. He would probably not be any more generous if he owned such a thing. Still, he finds the chance to stay with a human for any period of time a very thrilling consolation prize. And the man has already proven willing to share some of his water, though perhaps the pitcher on the table was not for Jensen after all.

“I…will accept. Thank you,” Jensen says, wondering if the offer had been genuine. These creatures tell things called jokes. Jensen is only now realizing he may have just failed to detect one. “If you really mean it?”

Jensen’s human steps closer to the bed with a small smile at the turn of his lips. He reaches out, stroking a large hand over Jensen’s forehead and into his hair. “You’re still a little clammy,” he says. “You oughta get some more rest.”

_______________________________________________________________

Jensen—as he now thinks of himself—has been studying Jared's species for months. It was a punishment, actually, but a poor one. Humanity was the only job Jensen ever got that he could make himself care about.

He has never taken pleasure in planning wars, though he was not stupid enough to admit why. Not out loud. The others probably guessed it. He didn't thrill in the thought of bringing pain to other creatures, not even the ones that stood between the Engelons and a big, blue planet. Engineering never held much interest, either, though he was serviceable enough with machinery, at least until he got distracted. Even the ship's stores of water failed to spark Jensen's interest—it was always enough for his ration to come at the appointed times. He never paused to wonder where it came from or how much of it was stashed on the ship or how much time they had before it would run out. Not enough, judging from how quickly the others threw him off once he was formally judged unworthy of the water it took to sustain him.

Jensen doesn't blame them, not really. He knows his failings. He has, and has always had, a curious habit of stopping sometimes just to think. Just to imagine. Not practical things, like where his next drink would come from. Jensen would question whether the water they feasted on was alive, if it could feel like he could.

It was not until they put him to studying humans that he found other creatures who shared this particular trait. Daydreaming, that is their word for it. A very nice word, in Jensen’s opinion. Another thing he never said out loud.

“Look who’s finally up and about.” Jared comes in wearing a gray shirt, covered in wet stains, and his hair is dripping, too. It makes Jensen very thirsty just to look at the man.

He smiles at Jensen as he pulls a towel off the back of one of the chairs arranged around the table and rubs it over his face. Jensen has been bed-ridden for the entire day since he first woke up, his strange, bulky human legs unwilling to cooperate when he tried to tell them to walk. Tentacles were so much more practical, and Jensen wishes, not for the first time, that it were easier to convince himself to slip back into what should be his natural form.

Today is his first time upright since he drowned, the first time he could convince those stupid sticks humans call limbs to bend and move in places where they are capable of doing so. He only made it as far as the kitchen before he fell into the first seat he could find. It's embarrassing for Jensen to have the human walk in now and catch him trying to teach himself to walk.

"I'm not," Jensen says. "I'm sitting down. It's very nearly the opposite."

Jared laughs, rolling his eyes and tossing the towel on the table in front of Jensen. "Smartass."

Jensen stares at the wet fabric, his stomach beginning to rumble. He can smell the moisture, though he still doesn't know where it came from. Jared has been very kind, bringing Jensen the same pitcher and a similar (though unshattered) glass to drink from every day. He has allowed Jensen to gorge himself on nearly twice what he was rationed on board his mothership, with nothing more than a raised eyebrow when he returns to Jensen's room and finds that the large jug is, once again, empty.

So it's not like he's starving. But Jared just dropped this perfectly good watery towel down in front of him, and Jensen can't help wondering where Jared returned from so wet. "Where were you?"

"Went for a run," Jared says, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle full of a bright orange liquid. Gatorade, the label says. It smells like water, too. Everything on this perfect planet seems to be made of water. "Nice long one, down to the river's edge. No floating bodies this time, which is lucky, cause I only have so many guest rooms to put you guys up in."

Jared grins and watches Jensen like he's waiting for some kind of reaction, but Jensen doesn't know what it should be, so he just sits quietly. The human seems upset by this. 

"Not much of a sense of humor," Jared finally says after a long silence.

He frowns. "I can try to do better."

Jared shakes his head. "Aww, c'mon now, don't go all kicked puppy on me. It was a joke. You know, I'm not so good around strangers, either. I get all kinds of awkward. You just need a few days to relax. I've been there."

Jensen is not entirely sure he believes this. Jared seems perfectly comfortable. "You're lying," he says. "To make me feel better. I'm no less a stranger to you than you are to me."

"Nonsense!" Jared replies. "I hung out with you plenty while you were still passed out. Two full days I had nothing to do but talk to you. You should have heard how awkward I was the first day. Kept asking you about the weather. You were polite enough not to make fun of me, though."

Jensen nearly explains to Jared that he could not respond because he was asleep and did not hear what Jared said to him, but then, very suddenly, he laughs instead. That's the joke. Jensen got a joke.

"There you are," Jared says, giving Jensen a light swat on the back. "That's one hell of a smile you've got when you loosen up. I'm looking forward to seeing it more."

Jensen looks away, which makes his eyes land on the towel again, and he remembers what they were talking about. "Why did you go for a run?" he asks. "Was something chasing you?"

Jared makes a sound like the Earth pigs Jensen once studied from his lab. "Oh, yeah. This ferocious beast." He looks down fondly at the brown creature that has been excitedly following at his heels since he walked in the door. "And maybe the jelly doughnuts I let myself have when I went into town last week."

The ferocious beast looks over at Jensen, cocking its head to one side. It watches him for a few seconds, then walks over and presses its face against Jensen's thigh. What a strange greeting. "Hello," Jensen says to it, assuming that it must speak the same language as Jared. "You don't seem very ferocious to me."

"That's my girl, Sadie," Jared tells him. He's grinning and watching as Jensen pats her on the head when Jensen looks up and meets his eyes.

Apparently, humans come in more shapes and sizes than Jensen's research indicated. "She's very attractive," Jensen says.

"She's a good girl," Jared agrees, patting her on her side. "Aren't you a good doggie?"

She turns her face, licking Jensen's hand as a reminder that he's stopped paying attention to her. That's when Jensen gets it—she's a pet. A dog. He heard about dogs but never saw one in any of his case studies. He's relieved, however, that he did not entirely mess up the parameters of what makes a human, well, _human_.

"But please explain," Jensen presses on. He wants to understand, he really does. "Why did you go outside to run if you were not being threatened?"

"It's good for you?" Jared says, as if it's more a question than an answer. How is Jensen supposed to collect data on Jared's motivations if even Jared does not know? "And fun? I like the view?"

Okay, so humans are not the most productive or logical creatures in the universe. Jensen never intended to argue that they were. But their actions are so irrationally wasteful that they circle back around to being worth protecting. They want to go for a run; they go for a run. Just like that. There's something to learn from that kind of behavior, even if Jensen can't quite pin it down just yet.

"Just because," Jensen supplies.

Jared smiles. He points a finger at Jensen with one hand as the other raises the orange liquid to his mouth to take a long sip. Then he lowers it, wiping the back of his hand over his lips and giving Jensen a concerned look-over. "Hey, are you hungry? I can whip us up some breakfast. I've got, uh," Jared turns back to his refrigerator, opens it and stares inside for a little over a minute. Then he closes it, turns back to Jensen, and continues, "eggs. Eggs are pretty much all I've got as far as breakfast food goes. Well, and cereal. But I think you need something hardier. I make a mean omelet."

According to Jensen's mental scans, an omelet is a way humans cook eggs. How an omelet could be mean, or why Jensen would want such an omelet, is another matter worth looking into. He's only spent about an hour altogether talking to Jared since he woke up, but already his list of possible research topics seems unending. What a species—and this is only one of billions of them.

"I would love a glass of water," Jensen replies when he realizes Jared is waiting for an answer. He hopes he isn't asking for too much, but then, Jared did offer.

"And?"

"And…another glass of water after that?"

Jared laughs. "Man, I don't think I've seen you eat anything since you woke up. You should be dying by now."

"I've had plenty to drink," Jensen reasons.

"This is true," Jared says, tilting his head in concession. "I've seen fish who like water less than you."

Jensen does a quick search for fish and finds that there are animals on this planet who, like the Engelons, thrive in water and die without a constant supply. Good, this is progress. Now he has a word for himself that Jared will understand. "I am what you call a fish, yes."

"Alright, Nemo, fair enough," Jared says. He reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a pitcher not unlike the one he's been leaving by Jensen's bedside. Then he gets a cup from one of the small wooden cabinets by the window over his sink and fills it. "Here you go. But you really need to eat something, too. Sometimes, after you've been sick for a while, you're so exhausted you don't realize you're hungry until you start eating. I learned that in school. I think. I don't know. It was a long time ago." Jared stops himself, then shakes his head and gets back on track, looking at Jensen and saying in a stern voice, "My point is, you should be hungry and I am going to make you something. Something delicious."

Jensen shrugs, willing to indulge Jared on this. Sure, he doesn't need food the way humans do, but there's no reason to assume omelets will be any harder to adjust to than the atmosphere on this planet was. Besides, food is very important to humans. All of Jensen's research has pointed to sharing meals as the most common way to fuse connections, and Jensen will never understand humans if he can't understand this ceremony.

"Yes, I will have a mean omelet," Jensen says. "Thank you very much for the offer."

Jared looks relieved out of all measure to hear Jensen agree. "You're not a vegetarian, are you? I mean, it's fine if you are. Just gonna need to rethink how I cook…everything."

He shakes his head. He's not anything that he knows of, so it may or may not be true, but he doesn't want to inconvenience Jared any more than he already has.

Jensen cannot attest to the meanness of the omelet Jared serves him. It does not seem to have very much personality at all, but perhaps it was, like Jared thinks Jensen is, just shy. He makes a note to try to sustain a longer conversation with his next omelet before eating it. What Jensen can definitely confirm about omelets (whether mean or otherwise) is that they are wonderful.

All food, Jensen learns quickly, is rather wonderful.

"See," Jared says, setting down a plate with two things he calls 'sandwiches' on it. "I told you you were hungry."

"I will never doubt you again," Jensen promises. He bites into one of the sandwiches on the plate, which makes this his sixth.

"I'm worried I'm gonna break your heart completely here, but, uh, I should probably let you know that that's the last of the bread I had. And ham. And cheese. So, uh, basically there are no more sandwiches after those."

"No more sandwiches," Jensen asks, looking up and letting the bread droop sadly between his fingers. He would have paced himself if he'd realized how scarce these delicacies were. "Ever?"

Jared laughs. "Just until I go to the market again, you big drama queen. I'll try to head into town tomorrow, alright? You can come with if you think you'll be up for it."

"I don't know if I'll make it," Jensen admits. "My legs don't seem to be very functional."

"Nah, they'll be fine." Jared snatches the other sandwich off the plate and takes one bite before putting it back in front of Jensen. Jensen pouts just the slightest bit as he watches Jared chew and swallow a piece of _his_ delicious sandwich. "Just need to get your bearings back. I think some exercise will do you good. Wanna come on my run tomorrow? Or walk, I guess, you're probably not ready for a run. But I can give you a nice tour of the ranch and help toughen your muscles." Jared laughs. "Besides, when was the last time you saw the sun? You're so pale you're almost see-through."

Jensen decides not to point out that just a few days ago he was completely translucent. And covered in much more user-friendly limbs than the sorry excuses Jared seems so eager to run around on.

Then again, he chose this body. Not on purpose, but in his own way. He'd been as shocked as the rest of the collective when he'd rolled out of his sleep capsule and landed on legs rather than tentacles. He tried to tell that to his fellow Engelons, but they weren't interested in his excuses.

Anyway, no amount of explaining could hide what Jensen's new form meant. Engelons don't shift at will. They consist predominantly of mental processes, and those processes are what hold their physical matter together. Their bodies reflect what their minds perceive as the correct shape for them, and Jensen's mind had confused his own form with that of the humans. His brethren took it as a sign that Jensen felt more loyalty toward humankind than Engelonkind, and they were not wrong. He didn't mean to take a side, but it's not something he could flip a switch on once he had.

And it wasn't like his track record did him any favors. He'd spent nearly a month trying to convince the collective that they should approach humans peacefully, explain their need for water and try to offer technology as a way to balance out a trade. Peaceful relations, a way for everyone to get what they wanted without destroying the fascinating animals that have already built so much on the Earth's surface. Jensen was never exactly what one would call popular, but after making this argument publicly, he became even more scorned than before.

So they already hated him, but it was not until he woke up in this human body that they finally accepted just how flawed he was. It was not sentiment that allowed Jensen to live amongst them as long as he did, but the communal shame he caused. An infected limb like him on the Engelon body reflected poorly on all of them. They tried every possible cure before amputation.

He looks at Jared's eager expression, apparently genuinely wanting nothing more than for Jensen to go on a walk with him, and he doesn't really miss belonging to the Engelon body. Now he has his own body, one that reflects what he thinks and feels, even if it is a little unwieldy. One that can do things like go for a walk—just because. 

So he nods to accept Jared's offer and vows to spend the whole night pacing back and forth in his room if that's what it takes to learn how to move his new legs in the way that comes so naturally to his host.

_______________________________________________________________

"You sure you're feeling alright?" Jared stops on the path, turning and putting a hand on Jensen's shoulder to steady him.

"I'm fine," Jensen tells him, for the millionth time (that is a human expression Jared taught him—Jensen has not really said it that many times). He gives Jared a smile he hopes is convincing. "Just a little wobbly on my land legs."

Jared grins. "You look like a calf. We used to have cows, you know. Whole herds of 'em. Back when the ranch was a real ranch and shit actually grew on the farmland."

Jared sighs, looking out at the large patch of green ahead of him. From what he's told Jensen, this all belongs to him. The idea that any creature can own things for himself, let alone big things he can't hold, like farms and rivers, is not one Jensen has managed to completely wrap his head around just yet.

For an Engelon, just wanting to be his own creation, to think and feel things that were not shared by every member of the collective, was indulgence enough. Even with all the transgressions he thrilled in before they finally threw him away, Jensen would never have dared to think that he could own something and keep it all to himself. Now he has a name, and that's all his; it seems big until he puts it next to everything that's Jared's.

The human shakes his head, looking away from all his property and giving Jensen a wary smile. It does not bring automatic happiness, owning things, not in the way Jensen would have assumed. That's easy enough to tell from the disappointed glaze over Jared's expression. "Anyway, the point is, I saw a lot of calves born, and they all waddled along just like that when they took their first steps."

Jared is teasing, Jensen knows, from the way his voice rises and falls and from the fact that Jared always seems to be teasing someone—if not Jensen then himself or, on rarer occasion, Sadie. He moves quickly then, wrapping an arm around Jensen's middle and picking him up a few feet off the ground. "Need me to carry you?"

Jensen slaps at his arms and Jared drops him, though not so quickly that he doesn't make sure Jensen has good footing once he touches the ground. "You're annoying. You know that?"

"Everyone says so," Jared replies. He gives Jensen an encouraging shove in the side, moving him farther along the path. "Come on. You think you can make it another fifteen minutes? I'll show you my favorite place."

When they reach it, Jared's 'favorite place' doesn't look all that different than many of the other spots they've passed since leaving Jared's house. It's an empty field with the same whitewashed wooden fence around it that has been hovering at the edge of the path all day. There's a huge oak tree blocking out the sun, which does make for a better, cooler temperature, Jensen will admit, though he doesn't think it is in any way more significant than the other trees.

There is one strange thing about it. Dangling from one of the branches is a long, thick rope and tied to the end of that rope, a big black tire, like the ones that serve as legs for the shuttles humans use to transport themselves.

Jared walks up to the wheel and sits in the middle. It doesn't look all that comfortable. "This is where my brother and sister and I used to play when we were little. It was like a magical world back then, I swear. We'd have so much fun." He rises to his feet and pushes the tire. It swings out about three feet and then back toward Jared. "It's still a good place to come and clear my mind. Always quiet. Never used to be back then, but it's not bad."

He smiles at Jensen in a way that makes even Jensen aware that he should not ask what happened to make it so quiet. "You can come here, too, if you ever need to think about anything. If you want a little privacy."

Jensen returns the smile, taking a few steps into the field rather than hanging back by the fence where he had been. He stops about an arm's length from Jared and wraps his hand around the rope just above the rubber tire. "I've never had somewhere to go just to think before," he says. "I will like it here, too."

"Beats the hell out of the river at least," Jared says, licking his lips. "I don't want you to think about that anymore."

"I won't," Jensen promises, not sure what he's promising, really.

He thought at first that Jared just didn't want to share, but now he's not so sure. There's some greater significance for Jared in Jensen's wanting to go to the river. For Jensen it's a beautiful place, it's the impossible thing that appeared out of nowhere, saved his life, then carried him here so he could meet Jared. For Jared it's just the opposite. He seems more afraid for Jensen's sake than greedy whenever he talks about the river.

Logical or not, it's not so much to ask, for all his help, that Jensen not return to the water Jared pulled him from.

He decides to inspect the tree, walking a circle around the large trunk. The bark is rough to the touch, and Jensen finds it terrifyingly real. Everything was smooth and carefully assembled aboard his mothership. This world is bounteous, it's true, but that doesn't mean it's safe. The edges under his fingers could hurt someone. Jensen just can't decide if the thought thrills him or makes him long for home.

"What do you think?"

Jensen pulls his hand away from the tree, his head snapping up. He'd almost forgotten Jared was here, but now the human is standing directly in front of him, watching him with an air of expectation.

"I think maybe I like it," he says.

Jared's expression changes to a soft smile, and he reaches out, his hand resting on Jensen's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it yet?"

Jensen feels his face pull together, the way his muscles always tense when he is confused in this body. "About what?"

"Whatever made you go to the river. You don't have to tell me if you don't want," Jared continues, leaning against the bumpy oak as if it doesn't even scare him. As if it's natural, though Jensen supposes it is in his world. "But if you do need to talk—I've been there. I really have. I know how important it is just to have someone to listen." He laughs, scratching the back of his neck and then dropping his hand uncomfortably. "There was no one like that for me. I think it would have made a lot of difference."

He gives Jensen another pat and then turns away, and Jensen can still feel the warm spot on his shoulder where Jared's hand had been. He stares as Jared walks away from him, until he reaches the entrance to the field and looks back at Jensen. "Come on, then," he says, waving Jensen over. "Let's go home. You can have first shower."

"First shower?" Jensen asks.

Jared grins. "Yeah, I bet you're dying for one."

Jensen doesn't know how to tell Jared that the term 'shower' is unfamiliar to him, so he walks silently until they reach the house and Jared leads him to the bathroom. Then he turns a knob and something downright miraculous happens: water begins to fall from the sky.

"Holy shit," Jensen says, watching with wide eyes as the shower continues. "Yes, I definitely really need a shower. I forgot. Just how much I like showers."

Jared smiles, sticking one hand under the spray quickly, then shaking it off. Jensen realizes he probably sounds like an idiot, but he's a little too in awe to think clearly, and Jared doesn't call him out. "Temperature's good. There aren't any tricks to getting this one to work. Hold on, let me just grab you a towel."

He returns about half a minute later and gives Jensen a dark green towel, then leaves saying something about letting Jensen undress. Jensen spends the next three hours in the shower, and the water never runs out.

_______________________________________________________________

He joins Jared for a walk every day after that, and it helps Jensen recover his strength. So has food. Within his first few days as Jared's guest, he learns that although these things are not requirements for his species, they bring him many of the same benefits that they give to humans.

Exercise, for example, leaves a burn in Jensen's muscles for only a fraction of the time that not using his new legs frequently did, with the added bonus that he has increased his ability to control them. It does not come close to the dexterity he had with his tentacles, of course, but he has finally realized that this is to be expected. Jared can only control specific points in his limbs (joints, he calls them), too, and he's been using them his whole life. That's good enough for Jensen, even if the body will always be a little too stiff next to the memory of his languid Engelon appendages.

And food—well, okay. Jensen's not entirely sure food has done anything for him except for taste good. But the things Jared cooks…they just taste really, really good. Jensen looks forward to their meals all day, not because of the water he's served with them but because of the pleasure he derives from the act of sitting down to eat with Jared. It's the only time Jensen can count on Jared's company, those three meals a day. Not that Jared is hard to get a hold of the rest of the time, but he has his own things he does, and he lets Jensen have his privacy. When they eat, though, there's no pretense to privacy or separation. It's the first human ritual Jensen really, truly feels he understands the significance of.

He maybe gets a little thrill, as well, from the dirty thought of just how much time he wastes eating and walking and talking to Jared. What bounty, to be so idle. Jensen has discovered strengths and abilities he never would have as an Engelon, because they never would have taken the time to try out a new routine just to see if there might be benefits. Jensen sees it as a great big fuck you (another phrase he learned from Jared) to his collective every time he sits down at the table.

The truth is: Jensen is happy here. He likes Jared, and he likes Earth. There's more water than he could ever drink and more kindness than he could ever hope to comprehend. He still doesn't understand why Jared allows him to linger when he has contributed nothing and has, in fact, slowed many of Jared's routines. Jared now has to cook twice as much, walk rather than run in the mornings, and work around an added body in his space, but he makes all these adjustments like Jensen's doing him a favor just by being there to enjoy them.

Tonight, Jared is singing (Jensen is no expert, but it is _bad_ singing) along to the radio and shaking his hips in a way he calls dancing (Jensen also has suspicions about whether Jared is as good a dancer as he claims to be, but Jared just puts his hand over his heart and plays dead whenever Jensen brings them up) as he shuffles around the kitchen making dinner.

"How do you feel about seafood?" Jared asks, turning to Jensen and waving whatever he has in his hands. Jensen's stomach turns when he realizes it's three limp tentacles dangling in Jared's grasp. "Kinda gross looking, huh?"

"Extremely," Jensen replies, watching Jared continue to dance with their food. It seems a little morbid, eating something's limbs like that, but then human habits are beyond him. He just hopes they didn't come off a person.

"Hey Jensen, wanna shake my tentacle?" Jared holds one of the limbs out to him, wiggling it along with his eyebrows. Jensen feels himself blush. Humans are very private about their tentacles from what he can tell, and even though he knows Jared's only joking about the food he's preparing, it still makes his face burn red.

To distract himself, Jensen rolls his eyes. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?"

"You're no fun." Jared turns back around and takes a big, sharp blade to the tentacles. Just watching makes Jensen ache in sympathy. "Tell me something about you," Jared instructs as he continues to work. "You've been here a couple of weeks now and I feel like the only things I know about you are that you're kinda bitchy and you have a drinking problem."

Jared makes sure to pause what he's doing so that he can stick his tongue out at Jensen, and Jensen puts his newfangled education on human behavior to good use, raising one of his middle fingers for Jared's benefit.

"What do you want to know?"

He watches Jared's big shoulders shrug. Jared has been very careful about asking Jensen to talk about his past, which is lucky for Jensen. It's not like he can share much of his biography. "Anything you don't mind talking about," he answers. "Like, where are you from?"

"Up," Jensen replies, stalling. He tries to remember the country names on the map Jared has posted in his living room, but all he knows is the shape of the continents as he saw them from his mothership. "Um, up north. Very north."

"Canada north?" Jared asks.

Sure, why not. "Yes, Canada. I'm from Canada."

"Canada's pretty big." Jared sets the food on the stovetop to cook and then opens the refrigerator, pulling out a brown bottle and popping off the top. "Anywhere in particular? I used to have an aunt in B.C., just outside of Vancouver. Never got a chance to visit, though."

"What a coincidence," Jensen enthuses, hoping he's coming off as genuinely excited. "I'm from Vancouver."

"Huh," Jared replies, lifting the bottle to his lips, his head tilting back as he drinks.

Jensen's eyes rest on Jared's throat, as they often do when it moves like this, though he's not so sure why he finds it so exhilarating. Something about the action makes Jensen feel flushed, and this time Jared's eyes catch his when he tilts his head back down and swallows, and he gives Jensen a subtle smile, like maybe he knows what's keeping Jensen mesmerized, even as Jensen has no idea.

Jensen coughs and looks away.

"I guess that explains why you're so weird all the time," Jared teases. "What with you being Canadian and all."

"Fuck you," Jensen says, laughing as he shakes his head. "You're a Tex-ass."

"Born and bred!" Jared replies, putting on a thick accent and resting his hands over his belt.

"It wasn't a compliment." Jensen grins, because he knows how proud Jared is of his home state; he has to hear about it all the time. "It means you smell like sweat and digested Mexican food."

Jensen doesn't actually know what those things smell like—his body can only detect the scent of water—but he's picked up a few tricks since he got here, including how to press Jared's buttons.

Jared cracks up at the insult, kicking Jensen under the table. "Did they freeze your heart up in the North Pole, Jenny? It's okay if they did. You can tell me."

"They sure tried." Jensen laughs. Poor Canada, wherever that is, probably deserves better than to be a stand in for his Engelon roots. 

"D'you miss it?" Jared asks, his voice softer now, less teasing for once. "Ever plan to go back?"

"No." Jensen thinks of home, his real home, and he'd rather dehydrate. "Never."

Jared changes the subject. "What's your last name?"

Jensen sighs. Having a name, Jensen gets. Having two just seems excessive. He looks around the room and his eyes settle on the stove; he mumbles out the first thing he can think of. "Tentacles."

They seemed like as good a choice as his other options—chair, fridge, pot—for Jensen to identify with. He doesn't realize how stupid the answer is until after he's already said it.

Jared leans forward, making a face like he doesn't buy it, and Jensen thinks he's in for it, but then he gets lucky. "Sorry, didn't hear you. Did you say Ackles?"

"Yes," Jensen lies. "Ackles. That's me."

"Any relation to the radio guy?"

Dammit. Jensen frowns, and, again, Jared jumps in and saves him from fucking up. "Shit, I'm sorry, Jensen. We don't have to talk about your family. Forget it." He looks around and then gives Jensen a too-big, very obviously fake smile. "You want a beer? I'm gonna get you a beer."

Jared does just that, his chair making a scraping sound on the floor as he hurries to his feet. Jensen's not sure what upset Jared, and he feels a little guilty being relieved, but he wasn't going to have any good answers to these questions, and he already got lucky with the tentacle thing.

He sniffs at the bottle Jared sets down in front of him, and Jensen detects some water. Jared has beers all the time, so Jensen figures they must be pretty delicious and takes a long drink. It's not until he's swallowing, when the liquid hits his throat, that he doubles over in pain, spitting out as much as he can.

His whole mouth is on fire, and Jensen feels his body beginning to convulse right there on the dining room floor.

"Jesus Christ!" he hears, then "Jensen!"

Within moments, Jared is kneeling by his side, cupping his face and trying to say something to him. Jensen can't focus on the questions he asks. All he can think or say is, "Water! Water, please."

Jared disappears for a while, and Jensen's mouth is still burning; he keeps gagging up whatever that venom was until he feels Jared holding a cup to his lips. Jensen nearly clamps his mouth shut against any liquid, but he smells the water, much stronger than it was in the beer that caused this reaction, and gulps down greedily.

He feels the cool, pure taste of water spread through him, first his mouth and then down, cleansing out the worst of the pain. He finishes the water and sits up, still coughing. "More, please."

Jared obeys, returning with a whole pitcher. "What the hell, dude?" he asks as he refills Jensen's cup.

Jensen doesn't even try to answer until he's emptied that one as well, and he feels almost like he might not die, but it's a near thing. "That stuff," Jensen says, glaring up at the table. "What was that?"

"It's just a beer," Jared replies, looking from the bottle and back to Jensen's face with a wild expression. "Are you allergic or something?"

"I don't know," Jensen says, his voice scratchy. He tries to soothe his throat by rubbing it, but only the water seems to be working, and even with that to help, Jensen still feels an unbearable ache in all his limbs. "I've never had it before."

"You've never had a beer?" Jared asks, like this is the most ludicrous thing that has ever come out of Jensen's mouth. Jensen finds this hard to believe, considering. "What the hell goes on in Canada?"

"Ugh," Jensen replies, trying to stand by bracing himself on his chair. He slips, though. Jared catches him, holding him up and helping him to his feet.

"Forget it," Jared says. "What do you want to do?"

"Bed," Jensen tells him. His legs feel more useless than ever, hanging as limp as the tentacles Jared chopped up and threw into their dinner. "Ow. Ow."

Jared doesn't laugh at him. He sweeps Jensen up into his arms and carries him slowly to the room Jensen has been staying in, dropping him into bed without ceremony. Jensen crawls up to his pillow, clutching the comforter for dear life.

"I'll bring you more water, okay?" Jared tells him. "Just hold on."

"Gotta clean up," says Jensen, remembering the mess he left on the kitchen floor and feeling ashamed. "Fuck."

Jared pushes him back down into bed. "Don't even think of it, Jensen. I've got it."

Jensen nods because he probably can't make it that far, and just the thought of seeing that brown bottle again makes him feel like he'll die.

His body goes into overdrive before Jared even makes it back with the water. Jensen lets himself shut down, wishing he had a river to fall asleep in. His chances of waking up again would probably improve significantly if he did.

_______________________________________________________________

He does wake up again. There's a warm, wet towel resting on his forehead, and when Jensen manages to get his eyes open, he sees Jared sitting up at his side.

"Jensen." Jared leans closer and looks at him, laughing softly. "Fuck, man. One sip of alcohol and you look like I did after my first high school party."

It's not making any sense to Jensen, and he doesn't really have the energy to ask Jared to explain. Jared takes the towel and wipes it over Jensen's face, wetting his parched skin, and Jensen closes his eyes, making a content sound and leaning into the touch. "My head hurts," he mumbles.

"Some hangover you've got there," Jared replies. "You've been out of it for almost a day and a half."

Jensen's eyes shoot open in shock when he hears that, and Jared laughs again, but it's not a bright sound. Jensen realizes right then how much he likes Jared's usual laugh, now that he's comparing it to whatever that was.

"How could you not tell me—?" Jared stops, takes a deep breath, and starts again. "I'm so glad you're okay. Are you okay? God, you had me worried."

There are dark circles under Jared's eyes, the kind humans get when they go too long without sleeping. And Jared looks worried, even as he's trying to make another joke about Jensen being something called a lightweight.

"I'm fine," he says, because he still feels a little sore, but he's going to make it through, and there's no need to stress Jared out anymore.

"Guess that drinking problem thing was a little more literal than I'd real—"

Jensen doesn't let him finish talking. He reaches out, grabbing one of Jared's hands, and squeezes it, surprising Jared into looking down to meet Jensen's eyes. "Why do you put up with me?"

Jared's expression changes in a way Jensen doubts he'll ever be able to read. He doesn't say anything, chooses to fiddle with Jensen's blankets instead. Jensen can't help wondering if that means Jared doesn't have an answer, or if he just doesn't want to share it.

_______________________________________________________________

It's nearly a month before Jensen even begins to understand what Jared might possibly want him around for.

He doesn't spy on Jared intentionally; the idea never even occurs to him. Jensen awakens in the middle of the night—the clock on his nightstand reads 3:38 a.m.—and finds that he is craving water. This is not unusual. Eight hours of sleep is a long time to be dry; the Engelons sleep in two hour blocks every three days. Humans need sleep much more often, and Jensen indulges, much like with food, simply because it makes him feel better.

He dreams at night of things that don't connect. Usually Jared is there, or his brethren, or on one notable occasion, Jared in Engelon form. He wakes up feeling rested and finds that this allows him to think more clearly and creatively in the days that come, unlike the mindset that Engelon sleep cycles produce: a mechanical devotion to accomplishing tasks without giving anything more thought than is required on the most basic level.

This is one of the nights when Jensen's fundamental Engelon needs kick in, overriding his desire to dream, and at 3:39 a.m., he grabs his glass and his empty pitcher and begins to walk toward the kitchen to refill them both.

He hears something, though, while the sink is running, that makes him pause and look around at first.

The sound is chilling. Jensen doesn't know why, but it instinctively sends a shiver through him. He turns off the faucet and walks back down the hallway empty-handed, his bare feet nearly soundless on the tile floor. Whatever the noise is, it gets louder as he approaches Jared's room. By the time he's halfway through the hallway, just passing the bathroom, he can hear the timber of the voice that's making it, and he recognizes that it's Jared's.

The light is off in Jared's room, but the door is just the slightest bit open, an offer for Sadie to come and go as she wishes in the night. Jensen draws close to the crack of it now, looking in so he can match Jared's body language with the sound he's releasing in an attempt to make sense of it.

Jared is sitting up in his bed, his elbows propped on his folded knees and his face hidden in his hands. Jensen can see Jared's big shoulders shaking as he makes the sounds, and Jensen doesn't know how he knows, but whatever Jared is doing, it's bad. It sounds like it's hurting him.

Jensen wants to make it stop, but he doesn't know how. So he quietly slips back to his room and hopes this is a dream he'll forget when he wakes up tomorrow, or at least that he will be able to pretend that's the case.

It happens again three nights later. And the night after that. Admittedly, Jensen checks now. He wakes up thirsty and uses that as his cue to look in on Jared. Not that he's helping. Not that he does any good. But he's trying so hard to learn how.

He doesn't come to satisfy his curiosity or to learn something new about humans. He wants to understand it, sure, but not in an academic sense. He just wants to know Jared better. He wants to know what he can do to help.

It's not until the sixth time he hears it that he finally connects the meaning and what it might have to do with Jared's kindness toward him. They're watching TV and a woman starts making the sound, almost identical to the way Jared does it. Jensen takes it as a perfect chance to ask Jared to explain without revealing what he's learned.

"What is she doing?" he asks Jared, pointing to the screen.

Jared laughs, throwing a handful of popcorn at him. "What does it look like she's doing? She's crying."

"Why is she crying?"

Jared turns to look at him, his eyebrows drawing together. "Dude, have you been paying attention at all? Her husband just went off to war. You _suck_ at watching movies."

It's true that Jensen does suck at this. He watches these things—movies and television—on the screen in Jared's living room for a while every night, but only because it's what Jared likes to do. He has trouble focusing on the stories (they aren't real, they aren't instructional, none of the people are familiar—Jensen doesn't know why he should care), so his mind wanders to more practical matters, like how many gallons of water there are in a river and whether or not Jared will make breakfast the next morning. When he does pay attention, it's even worse. He has to ask Jared to explain almost everything, and he knows it seems like he's an idiot, but nothing these creatures do makes any sense to him.

He stares at the screen now, feeling a line of concentration build between his eyes, and fights against all his instincts, trying to put himself in the woman's place and connect with what she is doing.

"So she's sad?" Jensen asks. "She cries because she's sad."

"Yes," Jared says, giving Jensen another strange look. "That's why most of us do it, right?"

He shrugs. "I don't cry. Do you?"

Jared swallows hard and turns his attention back to the screen. "Everyone does at some point or another."

"She's sad because her husband left her," Jensen says when he catches on that Jared's not going to volunteer more information. "Because she's alone now."

"Alone," Jared agrees, his expression dimming. "She's just lonely."

Jensen knows from the way Jared's voice drops that he's gotten his answer. Jared is lonely. He looks back to the woman on the screen, though she's not crying anymore. Her children have just arrived and she's smiling, pretending to be happy. She's convincing them, and suddenly Jensen feels very foolish indeed. Jared's smiles convinced him, too.

He wonders now, as he turns his attention to the human beside him, who left Jared alone. Did they have a war to go to, as well? Did they know how much Jared would miss them, that he would spend every night crying for them?

It hurts, too, to realize that Jared wants company, that that's why he's allowed Jensen to stay and be a burden on him for so long. It's not about Jensen at all. Jared doesn't want to be alone, and Jensen is better than no one.

Jensen can't put a name to the way this makes him feel, but it's so horrible that for a brief few moments, as the emotion wells up inside of him and tries to push him open from the inside out, he wants nothing more than to leave this planet and return to his kin. Intellectually, he is aware of how unreasonable it is to be hurt. He should be glad someone left Jared with a void that needed filling and that he arrived in time to fill it. It's the only reason he's still alive and well taken care of, and whether Jared truly cares about him or not is immaterial. At the end of the day, he's still getting what he needs from the human.

But if Jensen could turn off his emotions that easily, he would still be up on that ship, preparing to wipe Jared and every other human right off their planet. He's always been broken like this, as hard to comprehend as the humans in the movies Jared is so fond of. 

That night, he dreams of ways to make Jared smile for real, of things he can do to make Jared less lonely, so his friend will want him specifically. He dreams that he can be something to Jared, something that makes him stop crying.

He wakes up with a new sense of purpose, long before the sun or Jared rises, and immediately gets to work.

_______________________________________________________________

Jared stumbles into the kitchen as the sun is settling up in the sky for the day, scratching his bare stomach and yawning, his hair sticking out in every direction. "I smell coffee. You don't drink coffee, but I smell it, and if I'm hallucinating the coffee, I won't be held accountable for what I do."

"Fear not," Jensen says dramatically, walking from the counter to Jared with the mug he brewed and pressing it into Jared's palms. "There really is coffee."

"Thanks." Jared blows on the liquid before taking a long sip. He lets out a breath as he swallows, sounding satisfied, and Jensen feels a proud little rush that he finally got it right. "I didn't think you even knew how to make coffee."

"About that," Jensen replies. He can't help the guilty glance he throws toward the sink, down which he recently poured a whole lot of failed attempts at making this corrupted water Jared is so fond of. "You may need to add coffee to your shopping list."

Jared just gives Jensen a tired shake of his head and huffs out a laugh. "Can't find good help anywhere these days."

"I did the farming, too," Jensen volunteers, trying to boost his stock a little. "Or, well, what I could. Plowed the whole field out by the barn and then I tried to milk the cows but there weren't any cows and there weren't chickens to collect eggs from or pigs to feed. Unless I just didn't look in the right place?" Jensen looks at his feet. "I'm new to farming, but my research indicated that those were some of the things I might be able to do."

"You plowed?" Jared asks.

Jensen smiles patiently and starts from the beginning. Humans are very slow before they've ingested their coffee. "Yes. And I just need you to tell me where the animals are so that I can—"

"The whole field?" Jared looks down at his coffee, then out the window. "Jensen, it's like seven in the morning. What time did you get up?"

He hadn't slept. He had a whole farm worth of land to plow, and it wasn't exactly in great condition. "I checked when we should begin preparing to yield crops, and it looks like we're almost out of time if we want to get everything planted in season."

"We're not—I'm not—I'm sorry you wasted your time with that, Jensen. The farm's dead. I'm not planting anything. Not this year, and not any year after."

Jensen frowns. "It's too much work for one person, but together I think we can at least get something started up in time to—"

The look Jared gives him makes Jensen's form feel too big for him, and he wishes he were liquid again, just so he could sink into the floor. He wanted to make Jared happy, and he's never seen a human look so upset. "I could have found someone to help me do the work if I wanted to," Jared tells him. "This is a family farm, and there's no family here to keep it going for."

Jensen takes a seat at the table across from Jared. He stares at the blank surface instead of at the human, because he's never felt ashamed or embarrassed before, and he thought Jared would be happy.

He doesn't see Jared's hand reaching out for him until it's resting over his. "Look, Jensen, I really appreciate that you tried to help me out. I do. It's been a few years, but I know how much work that was." Jensen hazards a glance up and sees that Jared is watching him closely, an earnest expression on his face. "You shouldn't feel like you have to earn your keep around here, okay? No one does. Sadie and I just ended up stranded here, same as you."

"But I like it here," Jensen says. "I wanted to show you how much. I _wanted_ to say thank you."

Engelons can endure much more, labor longer and harder without taking breaks, than humans can. The field had been big, sure, but Jensen had worked the whole thing over in just a few hours, his eyes able to see when Jared's wouldn't have, all so that Jared could wake up to this surprise in the morning. He thought he'd finally found a place where he has something to offer, where someone might look at him and not see how useless he is.

"And now you've said it," Jared replies. "All it takes is two little words."

It's the same here as it was on his mothership. Jensen fucked up. Again. "I'm sorry, Jared. I should have asked before I did anything."

"Don't apologize to me," Jared says with a soft laugh. "I'm not the one who was up at ass o'clock in the morning doing farm work for no reason. I'd apologize to my sore muscles if I were you."

Jensen shrugs. He feels fine, except for the disappointment lodged in his gut.

"Hey," Jensen looks up at Jared, who is now standing over his shoulder trying to look encouraging, "I'm gonna make bacon."

Bacon is Jensen's favorite. It's a stupid thing to take comfort in, but Jensen picks up a new idiotic human habit every day.

Once breakfast is ready, they sit quietly as they eat. It's not until Jensen is washing dishes that Jared says, "You know what’s awesome about not working?"

Jensen shrugs and keeps scrubbing at the greasy pan in his hands.

"You get to do fun things all day instead." Jared comes up behind Jensen and shuts the water off, which makes Jensen turn toward him. He gives Jensen a childishly excited smile. "Wanna go for a swim?"

Swim, like river and drowned and shower, is a thing Jensen's race has no name for simply because the luxury never would have occurred to them. Jared throws him a pair of shorts and tells Jensen to put them on, and then they go for a walk just like they do every day. They don't follow their usual path, though, and after about twenty minutes, Jensen learns why.

He hears water running—not a faint trickle like there's a loose pipe on the ship, but a steady roar. For a brief moment, Jensen's body tenses up, anticipating the trouble that could come from a leak that big, but then Jared is running ahead of him, flinging his shirt off, with Sadie at his heels, and Jensen remembers he's not on-board anymore, and here on this planet, water sometimes falls from the sky. All you have to do on earth is lie on the ground with your mouth open—sooner or later you'll get fed.

So he follows the trail Jared ran down and finds Sadie waiting for him, wagging her tail. There's a loud whoop and then a splash, and then Jensen rounds a twist in the path and he sees what looks like a big bowl of water, with lush green vegetation growing all around it, and a cliff wall that pours more and more water in.

"Where are we?" Jensen asks, looking around. He's so awestruck for half a minute that he forgets to look for Jared until the man's head pops up from the water and he emerges to come stand by Jensen.

"You can swim, right?" Jared laughs. "Someone who likes water as much as you do?"

Jensen just blinks at him a few times, and Jared's smile slips. "Jesus—Jensen, you're not…" Jared slaps his forehead with his wet hand, and it makes a comical sound. "Fuck. I brought a guy who nearly drowned to a lake. This is why I have no friends."

"Are we not friends?" Jensen asks.

Jared gives him a sly smile. "You tell me."

"I like swimming," Jensen says, still staring at the lake. He's never actually tried it, but something about the idea of being surrounded by even more water than he gets to enjoy during his daily baths makes him pretty sure he'll enjoy it. "I'm not scared of drowning."

Jared smiles and takes Jensen's hand in his, pulling him toward the lake. "C'mon."

They spend several hours in the water. Jensen likes floating on his back best, but, true to form, Jared and Sadie take turns climbing on top of him every now and then, just so he can't get too relaxed. They have faces that are hard to stay upset with, but Jensen does his best to at least act annoyed.

That only makes Jared laugh, and the laugh does something stupid and confusing to Jensen's chest. He decides to look into it later. Right now he's perfectly content just to float in this impossible bounty of water, his eyes closed and turned toward the warm sun, not thinking of anything in particular.

For maybe ten minutes, the peace is unbroken, so Jensen isn't surprised when he feels Jared's fingers poking into his side, making him flail and open his eyes. "What? Leave me alone. I hate you."

"I've noticed that you're a lot nicer to me when you're comatose. I'm gonna start spiking your water so you go into alcohol fits more often."

"Don't even joke, Jared," Jensen says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. "I know where you sleep."

There's a light pressure on his face, so Jensen opens his eyes, his eyebrows drawing together when he sees Jared's gotten close to him and is brushing his thumb along Jensen's cheek.

"Personal space—ever heard of it?" Jensen lifts his hand up and wraps his fingers around Jared's wrist. He has every intention of pushing Jared away, but for some reason he gets stuck like that. The expression on Jared's face is intense, and for a moment Jensen wishes that he had his proper limbs back, so he could touch Jared all over, like the human seems to be doing with only one finger on Jensen's skin.

They stay like that—Jared staring, Jensen returning the look—for a long minute before Jared blinks, and it's like a spell's broken. Jared drops his hand from Jensen's face, laughing softly as he does so. "You've got freckles, Ackles," Jared says, exaggerating his accent.

Jensen doesn't know why he's disappointed, but all he can do to hide it is look away and say, "Fuck you."

"It's true, though," Jared continues. "You're pretty like a princess."

"Oh, look who's talking," Jensen returns. "Every time you come up from the water you toss your flowing locks like you're trying to sell me a boob job."

"You could use a boob job, asshat."

Jensen makes a very serious face. "So, just to get this on the record, you are, in fact, trying to sell me a boob job?"

"My evil plan all along," Jared confesses.

Sadie tries to join in on their laughter, barking loudly from the shore. Jared looks back at her, then at Jensen, and his face goes all concerned in a way that makes Jensen feel a little uncomfortable. "You ready to head back?"

"I'm not finished floating," Jensen whines. "The sun's not even thinking about setting. Can't I stay a little longer?"

He's only just discovered _lakes_ and _swimming_ , two of the greatest things he's ever experienced, and he can’t imagine why Jared would want him to leave already.

Jared hesitates, biting his bottom lip. "If I take her back to the house and throw some lunch together for us, can I trust that you'll still be here when I get back?"

Jensen laughs. "Where would I go? I'm the squatter, remember?"

Jared opens his mouth to reply, but he closes it before saying anything, and seems to think long and hard before opening it again. "You're happy now, right? You seem happy."

"I'm happy, Jared," Jensen assures him. He feels a shit-eating grin crack his expression in half. "I'd be happier with a sandwich."

"Okay," Jared replies. He swallows hard and nods. "Okay, Jensen. I trust you. Just. Don't—you know."

He doesn't know. He has no idea, really. But, whatever. "Yup! Promise."

Jensen tilts his head back then and continues floating. He drifts for so long that he doesn't really hear when Jared leaves and it's not until there's cold water splashing on his face that he realizes Jared has returned.

"Wakey wakey," he hears from his left, which is also where the splashing water's coming from. Classic Jared.

He sighs and stands, his feet digging into the muddy bottom of the lake. "Are you back already?"

"Shut up, you love me," Jared replies.

"I'll take your word for it." He rubs his palms into his eyes and looks up to the shore. "I thought you said you were bringing lunch?"

"I did bring lunch." Jared points up, to the top of one of the tall rocks forming a wall around the lake. "I set us up a picnic by the waterfall. Probably because I'm awesome."

"Probably," Jensen agrees, rolling his eyes. He follows Jared out of the lake and around on a path that leads to the top of the small cliff. It's not a terribly demanding climb, but it's pretty impressive that Jared made the whole thing with food for two people in his hands while Jensen was floating along, completely oblivious.

The picnic consists of two bottles of water, tuna fish sandwiches, and two big slices of watermelon. Watermelon is, unsurprisingly, Jensen's favorite food, and he eats his slice and half of Jared's, sucking the juice unapologetically from his fingers as he finishes it off.

Jared just watches him as he lies on his side, a lazy, content smile on his lips. "You have the weirdest eating habits of anyone I have ever known, Jen."

Jensen licks his lips one last time and then gives Jared a very self-satisfied smile. "You have an exceptionally large forehead for a human."

Snorting, Jared lies back, closing his eyes and basking in the sunlight, like Jensen had done in the water earlier. He takes the chance to look at Jared, just to look, closer than he usually does. Jensen likes to look at Jared.

After a while, Jared takes a deep breath and slowly opens his eyes. Jensen doesn't realize he's hovering right over Jared until Jared's eyes meet his. He's ready for Jared to tease him, or to ask what Jensen's doing, but Jared is quiet for once, like he understands what Jensen's thinking, even though Jensen doesn't.

He sits up slowly, reaching out, his big hand circling around the back of Jensen's neck, and looks hopeful and expectant. He waits for Jensen to make the next move, but Jensen doesn't know what the next move is supposed to be.

"Jensen," Jared whispers, moving forward a little and angling his head in a strange way.

He's about to ask, but then Jared presses his mouth against Jensen's. The pressure lasts for a few seconds. Jensen freezes, unsure of what the gesture means or how he should respond to it.

Apparently, this is not the correct reaction. Jared yanks his head back, covering his mouth with his hand. "Fuck, Jensen. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I wasn't trying to take advantage of you. I thought maybe, fuck. You weren't, I mean, I—please tell me I didn't fuck everything up and make you uncomfortable."

Jensen shifts to test it out. "I don't feel any significant change in my comfort level."

Jared huffs out a laugh, but he still looks nervous. "You never told me why your family—I assumed. And I thought maybe you wanted…" Jared clears his throat. "It doesn't matter. You should feel safe here and I—I shouldn't have done that. I know you're not in a good place right now. I never meant to do that unless I was sure you wanted it."

Jensen doesn't know what he wants, or what Jared wants, or what it has to do with what Jared just did. The only thing he knows for sure is that he wants Jared to say his name the way he said it just before he pushed their lips together. His name, like he's someone and Jared likes that person.

Jensen has learned a lot about humans since he fell to Earth—they're not tall, warm smiles and sandwiches and dogs all the time like Jared is. They're ugly, too. Not in the same way the Engelons were, cold and unattached, but in a way that's somehow more horrifying. Every time Jensen watches the news, they surprise him. He probably would have run right back to his mothership, begging not to be one of them, had anyone but Jared found him.

They hurt each other on purpose. For money, or power, or that abstract concept that seems to turn men into monsters, love. Engelons don't care about wiping species off planets to get what they need—but that's about necessity, Jensen understands that. Humans feel fondness and form attachments and long for beautiful things, and somehow it's those traits that make them dangerous.

He's learned a lot about humans since he fell to Earth, and the things he's learned would have taken all the hope right out of him. These are not the creatures he thought they were when he was sitting on his ship, wishing so desperately to be one of them. But he can't hate them or give up on them completely, because Jared is living proof that there are parts of them so good they are beyond his perception.

Jensen hates nothing about himself more than that. He's been acting human long enough to understand jealousy and greed, but he's no closer to comprehending Jared than he was the day he woke up. All Jensen wants is a look into Jared's mind, so the next time Jared wants something, he can know how to give it to him.

"Why did you rescue me?" Jensen asks.

"It wasn't because I wanted…" Jared's eyes dim, and he pulls back like he's just been sprayed with cold water. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"I could have been anyone," says Jensen. "I could have killed you."

"You didn't, though," Jared replies, shrugging like that's the end of it. "Did you?"

"That's not the point," Jensen snaps. "What if I had?"

"I might have thanked you for it," Jared answers. His voice is quiet and soft, but that doesn't stop the words from sounding harsh. "Didn't have anything to lose."

Jensen must make a confused face, because Jared gives a cool laugh and looks down at his hands. "I figured you knew. That you of all people understood."

He finds himself shaking his head. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Neither does trying to drown yourself," Jared replies.

Something slots into place for Jensen then, something he's been trying so hard to grasp. This is why Jared worries about him and rivers. He thought Jensen had been trying to die, when in fact it had been just the opposite.

 _Do people try to die?_ he asks himself. It's a few steps beyond the irrationality Jensen has come to expect from humans. He doesn’t see a single potential benefit from such an action, but then his world grinds to a halt as it really hits him that Jared just said _he_ wanted that.

"You—you can't, Jared. How would I—?"

Jared gives him a weak smile, his fingers brushing gently along Jensen's hairline, like he's trying to push a strand back behind Jensen's ear. "I've got something to lose now," he says. "You saved me, too, Jensen."

For a moment, Jensen doesn’t care anymore. If Jared just needed someone around, if anyone would have done, at least Jensen showed up before his crazy, senseless, moron of a human being could put an end to his crazy, senseless, moronic existence.

"I probably wouldn't have done it," Jared says, like that's going to reassure Jensen. But then he tilts Jensen's chin up, so Jensen has to look him in the eye, and the smile does help a little. "Now I know I won't."

"I won't, either," Jensen promises. Even though there wasn't any danger of it, because Jared doesn't know that, probably wouldn't believe him if he tried to say it, and if Jared feels anywhere as sick over the idea as Jensen does, Jensen wants to put those fears to rest. "I wouldn't do that to you."

"Good. Let's neither of us think about it anymore." Jared grins, hurrying to his feet. "Dare me to jump?"

Before Jensen gets a chance to do so, Jared runs off the rock, tucking his legs into his chest and yelling "cannonball!" Jensen laughs as he shakes his head. He knows a distraction when he sees one, but he jumps in after Jared anyway.

_______________________________________________________________

He can't ignore the crying that night. Not now that he knows the kind of pain that's causing it, something so awful even death seems better. Agony Jensen doesn't think he's capable of feeling, and he hopes he never learns.

But he does feel a sting, nonetheless, knowing that Jared's going through it, and he won't stay quiet about it anymore.

Jared's head snaps up when Jensen pushes the door open. He sniffs and passes his hand over his nose and says Jensen's name in a wet voice.

"Hey," Jensen says. He sits down at the edge of the mattress, looking at Jared in the moonlight that filters in through the window. There are wet tracks down his checks, and when Jared blinks, two big water drops fall from his eyes, rolling down the trails.

"Your eyes are leaking," Jensen tells him, reaching out to catch one of the drops on his fingertip. "It's wasteful."

Unexpectedly, Jared laughs at that. "The shit that comes out of your mouth, man."

Jensen is about to apologize, but very suddenly, Jared's arms are around him, and he's pulled Jensen in for a tight embrace. Jensen listens to Jared's long, shaky breaths for a long time before Jared lets him go.

"I'm sorry," Jensen says when he pulls back. "If I said the wrong thing again."

Jared shakes his head. "You make everything seem new. Shit I take for granted, you'll just say something about it that makes me rethink it completely. Even stuff that sucks, you make it a little bit funnier. I like that about you, Jen. I really like that."

He's not sure if he wants to smile at that or frown. That's him—that's something Jared likes about him that not just anyone could provide. But Jensen's not doing it on purpose, and if Jared knew just how new the things he takes for granted are to Jensen—if he knew what Jensen is—even Jared could probably learn to hate, for something as vile as an Engelon.

"Why do you cry, Jared?"

Jared huffs out a laugh. "I was hoping we might go the bro route and just never talk about this again."

"I'm not your bro." Jensen takes Jared's hand in his and squeezes it. "Tell me."

Jared shakes his head. "I'm sorry if I woke you, Jensen."

"I'm not," says Jensen. "You need someone to talk to, and I'm here now. I know I'm not the best at knowing what to say, but I can at least listen. Please let me help you."

After a long pause, Jared takes a deep breath. "I lost my family."

A couple of weeks ago, Jensen would have asked if Jared was sure he checked everywhere. Now, though, he knows what Jared really means. "I'm so sorry," he says, shifting so he's closer to Jared. "How did they…?"

"I don't know. The police said it was probably an accident. They couldn't explain it, either." Jared swallows hard. "They were mummified. Just—all of them: my mom, my dad, my big brother, and little sister. One of the neighbors noticed no one had left the farm in days so they went over to check and all four of them were just…dead. No weather to explain it, no unusual circumstances except for—they said it wasn't murder, that there was no reason to suspect, but someone must have done something."

Jensen doesn't know what mummified means, but he doesn't really need to. Doesn't want to make Jared rehash it. It's horrible enough to bear without details, so he reaches out and pulls Jared into him, and Jared starts crying again.

"I should have been here to protect them," Jared whispers. "Instead I was off at college dicking around."

"You probably couldn't have saved them," Jensen reasons, soothing his hand up and down on Jared's back. "You probably would have died, too."

"I wish I had." Jared sniffs and presses his face closer into Jensen's chest. "Or I wished that. Before. People kept telling me it would get better after a while, that I just needed some time to grieve and then I'd, I dunno, get back on the horse and go back to school. They'd remind me how proud my parents were that I was gonna be a doctor and say I should do it for them, but all I could think was that if I'd never gone away in the first place, I could have been here with them. I felt so guilty for living. Meg—three more months, she was going to Tulane. Three more months and I at least could have kept my baby sister. Instead I was the only selfish asshole who left home, because I thought I was too damn good to work the land like my dad and brother did."

"How could you have known, Jared?" Jensen asks, passing his fingers through the human's hair. "How would you dying have done them any good?"

"It doesn't matter," Jared replies. "You don't think like that when you've just lost everything. I didn't have anyone or anything to keep going for, and every goddamn day I was more alone and I just wanted to die. I thought about it all the time. More and more every day for two years, and then I found you and it was…I had a reason to get up in the morning."

Jensen's smile is weak, but Jared sits up and gives him a long, serious look, like he's thankful to Jensen just for being here, when really it should be the other way around. Jensen knows he hasn't done anything to earn that kind of gratitude—not from Jared, who he owes everything he has. But he feels stupidly proud nonetheless and can't help it when Jared's looking at him like this.

"At first it was just to make sure you were okay, you know? And just that was enough, at least it gave me some damn purpose. But then you woke up and you were…I wanted to get to know you. I actually looked forward to seeing you every day."

"And now?" Jensen asks, because Jared's using the past tense, and that has him worried.

Jared's expression slips a little. "Now I can't imagine never meeting you. And it makes it worth those two years I spent alone, knowing that if I'd ended it, you wouldn't be here. I didn't save them, but I saved someone. My life's not a total wash." He laughs and looks down at his hands. "And you're…you're pretty magnificent, okay? Whatever your family said or did that made you think otherwise, they were wrong, Jensen. I know it might not mean much coming from me. But you should know that."

"Thanks, Jared." Jared's still fiddling his hands in his lap, but Jensen takes one of them, and Jared looks up to meet his eyes. "That…it does mean a lot to me. _You_ really mean a lot to me."

Jared makes a sour face, but he immediately smoothes it out, like he's trying to pretend it was never there. "I know you don't feel the same way I do. And that's fine, obviously, it's not something you can just turn on and off. You don't know how much of a relief it is just to know I can feel this way about someone again."

"I'm happy to help," Jensen replies, giving Jared as convincing a smile as he can manage when he's not really sure how he's helping. "Do you want me to stay here until you fall asleep?"

Jared seems to consider it for a while, but then he shakes his head. "I think I should probably do my best not to depend on you more than I already have, Jen. An unrequited crush is one thing, but, uh, I'm not the most emotionally stable person on the planet and I don't see how falling for you doesn't end badly for me."

"Okay," Jensen says, trying to hide his confusion. "But will you cry again when I leave?"

With a huff of laughter, Jared pulls him in again, putting his face on Jensen's shoulder. "I think I'm good now," he says, his voice hardly more than a breath. "Thanks for listening."

Jensen wraps his arm around Jared's back, giving him one last, long squeeze before getting up and heading toward the door.

"Wait, Jensen," Jared calls when he reaches the doorway, and he turns, hoping maybe Jared's changed his mind. He's still no expert on human behavior—hell, he didn't understand half of the things Jared just said to him—but he's pretty sure Jared needs someone close to him. And maybe it's selfish, too. Maybe he just wants to be close to Jared. "Thanks for not letting me make things weird. For still liking me."

He grins, leaning in the doorway. "You're not a hard person to like until you start singing."

On the bed, Jared laughs, the sound light and easy and a huge relief to Jensen after the way his voice had sagged a few minutes ago. "Good night, Jensen."

"Night, Jared," Jensen says, knocking the doorframe on his way out.

_______________________________________________________________

Things are back to normal the next morning. Jared acts like the conversation the night before never happened, but he gives Jensen extra bacon and butters toast for him and it's not until Jensen asks if he's feeling alright that Jared stops himself from giving Jensen two-thirds of the scrambled eggs, too.

He blushes a little then, mumbling out some excuse Jensen doesn't catch and serving himself a more even portion. He goes on a run immediately after breakfast, and Jensen doesn't ask to come. It's pretty clear that Jared needs a little time alone.

Instead, he gets to work, trying to investigate some of the things that had confused him yesterday. He starts with the only research tool on human behavior he has readily available, which is why Jared returns to the house hours later to find Jensen parked in front of his television, enthralled by something called a soap opera.

"Is that _Days of Our Lives_?" Jared asks, his voice teasing as he drops onto the sofa. He stares at the screen for a few seconds and then makes a horrified face. "Oh my god, it is."

"Shh," Jensen says, waving a hand at him.

"What, do you not know how to use a remote?" Jared reaches for the clicker so he can change the channel, and Jensen turns, pouncing on Jared to stop him.

"We're about to find out who the killer is," Jensen says, pinning Jared to the sofa by his wrists. "You can't just change it."

"You could not be more embarrassing right now," Jared tells him. "I thought only old ladies watched this shit."

Jensen feels a faint blush begin to rise in his cheeks, but he keeps his face serious. He'd been flipping through the channels, trying to find one that could explain some of Jared's behavior the night before, and this had been the first one that showed two people pressing their mouths together, so he'd stopped here.

He knows what it means now, that Jared was trying to kiss him, because he, for some reason, seems to think Jensen would make a suitable mate for him. Jensen is too nervous to even try to reciprocate, sure that he can't really give Jared what he wants, no matter how desperately he might want to. But at least now he understands.

Well, almost. Jensen's research indicates that most of the creatures on this planet need members of both sexes to produce children, with humans being no exception. He and Jared could never reproduce, which would make the act meaningless, except that, judging by the television show he's been watching for the last few hours, humans engage in intercourse all the time, with very little provocation, in all kinds of assorted pairings. He hasn't had a chance to discover _why_ they behave this way. Just because, probably. 

Engelons only have the resources to produce offspring for about a fifth of the on-ship population at a time. Only the most qualified members of the collective are even considered for the privilege. Jensen never pretended it was an option for him, but the way Jared's eyes go darker the longer Jensen holds him down is making him want to reconsider.

"Okay, grandma. Okay! You can watch your soap. Just, uh, get off me before I pop a boner and this gets awkward."

Jensen laughs, climbing down with the remote in hand. "Pretty sure it got awkward when you said 'pop a boner,' Jay."

"I'm gonna take a shower before you use up all the hot water," Jared tells him, jumping up from the couch as soon as Jensen relinquishes his grip.

Jensen dismisses him with a hum. Ever since Jensen discovered bathing, Jared has made sure to take the first shower on any given day. Jensen has a habit of sitting in the tub for hours on end, which he would apologize for, except that it's too wonderful for apologies. Jared insists he doesn't mind as long as there's enough hot water for him, so Jensen doesn't use the hot water. He doesn't really give a shit about the temperature when there's a whole tub of water to just _sit in_.

It works out nicely.

"Let me know when you finish," Jensen calls back.

"Are you sure you can stand to be away from the TV for the four hours it'll take you to scrub your back?"

"I'll take the TV in with me." Jensen inspects a potato chip before popping it into his mouth. "Actually, that's a pretty great idea."

"I'll kill you," Jared promises before disappearing down the hall. As his voice grows more distant, Jensen can just hardly make out, "I'll buy a six pack of beer and make it look like an accident."

He snorts and returns to his show just in time to see Sami go on trial.

An hour and a half later, he's splashing away in the bathtub, completely content and oblivious to the outside world. At least until Jared barges in.

"I'm sorry!" he says, holding up a hand as a screen. He hurries across the bathroom and opens the mirror cabinet, rifling through the contents as he looks for something. "I'm not looking at you, I promise. Sadie ran off and I had to chase her and then I tripped over a rock and cut myself and the first aid kit is in here and I would wait until you're done except I know your ass is gonna be in here for like six—"

By now, Jared has grabbed the kit and turned around, and Jensen can see the blood running down his arm. He leaps up out of the bathtub, not bothering to grab a towel, because he knows a little bit about how to close up human injuries, and he figures Jared could use an extra hand.

Jared's eyes widen comically when he sees Jensen and he drops the box, the plastic making a loud sound as it crashes on to floor and cracks open, spilling the contents all over. Jensen's eyebrows draw together, but before he can offer to pick up the mess, Jared points between his legs, blinking his eyes over and over as if he expects to see something new every time he opens them.

"Your—you have—your dick is a bunch of tentacles. You have a tentacle dick. You have a bunch of tentacles instead of a dick." With obvious effort, he lifts his eyes up to Jensen's. "Jensen! You have tentacles!"

Jensen looks down, frowns, and then shrugs. "Why, where do you keep yours?"

Then Jared's eyes roll back in his head, and he collapses onto the floor before Jensen even gets a chance to catch him.

_______________________________________________________________

Jared comes to about twenty minutes later. By now, Jensen has carried him to bed and dressed his wound and he's covered up the tentacles Jared seemed to find so offensive.

He shifts as he wakes, and Jensen brings a glass of water to Jared's lips, because that's what he would want in Jared's place. Jared accepts it, taking only one sip before sitting up and pushing the water away. "What happened?" he asks.

"You cut yourself, but it wasn't anything serious. Then you passed out."

"Ah, right," Jared rubs his forehead. "Man, I had the craziest hallucination. Must have lost more blood than I realized."

It strikes Jensen that this would be a very convenient excuse. He could agree and try to find out what he got wrong about human anatomy, and maybe go on fooling Jared a little longer.

But, well, Jared trusted Jensen with his own secrets, and maybe it’s only fair that Jensen do the same. Not that he expects Jared to accept him once he knows what Jensen is. Not that he'll blame Jared when he doesn't. But he has the right to know.

"You had tentacle dicks. Five of them. Well, there was one big one and then two smaller ones on each side. And they were, like, kind of pretty? Opalescent with these reddish-brown dots all up and down them like freckles only more, you know, tentacle-y—and then the big one had suction cups. I was tripping balls."

Jensen laughs and brushes Jared's hair back from his face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he licks his lips, "maybe I hit my head, too, when I tripped? What a thing to imagine, though. It was so goddamn vivid."

"What if you didn't?" Jensen asks. "What if you really saw that?"

"C'mon, man, don't mock me. I'm having a very serious mental collapse. I thought you were a tentacle monster."

He frowns. "Is monster really what you'd call it?"

Jared moves quickly, pulling back so that he's sitting up completely, as close to the headboard as his pillows will allow him. "What are you trying to say, Jen?"

Jensen looks down at his hands. "What you saw was real."

There's a short, bewildered laugh, and then a long silence. "You're serious right now, aren't you?"

"Do you want me to show you them again?"

Jared holds out a hand to stop him. "Wait. Let me process." He takes a deep breath, then looks directly at Jensen. "What you are trying to tell me is that you do, in fact, have five tentacles where your dick should be?"

That one smarts Jensen's pride a little, and he narrows his eyes. "Well, hey now, I don't know about should be. I'm not sure what a dick is, but you humans were already lacking in tentacles when I thought you at least had some hidden under your clothes."

"You humans?" Jared says, his face turning pale. "As opposed to?"

Jensen takes a deep breath. "I'm what you would call an alien."

For a moment, Jared looks like he's going to pass out again. At least he's in bed this time. But he manages to recover, nodding slowly. "Right. Of course. An alien. I guess that makes as much sense as anything when it comes to explaining tentacle appendages popping out of your junk. So, you're from, like, Mars or something?"

"No," Jensen says. "Why would you think Mars? There hasn't been water there for thousands of years."

"It's just what the movies—wait a fucking minute, let's not get derailed here. You're an alien."

"By your standards, yes." Jensen nods. "We call ourselves Engelons."

"Where did you come from? How did you get here? Are there more of you? Are we under attack?" His breathing is speeding up, and Jensen can just imagine the way his heart must be drumming away inside his chest. "You look just like us. Well, except the whole tentacle dick thing. Are you everywhere?"

Jensen laughs, taking a little comfort in the fact that, maybe Jared won't ever want to see him again, but at least he'll have this last, neurotically amusing memory to hold on to. "Slow down there."

"I'll slow down when my entire world view is done being challenged."

"Is it really so strange?" Jensen gives Jared what he hopes is a reassuring smile. "I know many of your kind believe in aliens."

"But you're actually real. And you look just like us. You act just like us." Jared's eyebrows draw together. "I get maybe beaming down on Washington and blowing up the White House, but why would you choose to…hang out on a dead farm?"

"We don't look like you. We certainly don't act like you. And I didn't choose to beam down where I landed. I'm not acting as a part of—Jared, I wasn't lying when I told you my family cast me out."

"You just meant out of a spaceship. They cast you out of a spaceship."

Jensen nods. "It was a little more literal than you took it. They meant for me to die here. They didn’t know I would find water on land."

"The river," Jared says slowly.

"Yes," Jensen says, smiling a bit. "It saved my life."

His expression gets brighter, and then it dims. "So I didn't help you. You weren't trying to kill yourself at all. I've probably sounded like such an idiot this whole time."

"No, Jared." Jensen reaches out to take the human's hands, but Jared pulls back. "I wasn't trying to drown myself, and I would never have died in that river. But you certainly did save my life."

"Why?" Jared asks. "Why are you here? Why me?"

"I just got lucky," Jensen tells him with a smile. "Anyone else would have left me out to rot, I think. You brought me in. You kept me hydrated. You taught me how to be human, at least, as much as I've learned. I confess I'm still not great at it."

"You're getting better," Jared says, laughing and shaking his head. "Oh man, this is too weird." He looks up at Jensen. "But I guess it does explain a few gaping holes in your knowledge."

"You are the only human I've ever met. When I first woke up here, I'd only studied you from my ship. And poorly, I see that now. I thought I understood humans because I had a record of your measurements and body processes, but you're so much more than that."

Jared wrinkles his nose. "Did you do abductions or something?"

Jensen laughs. "I have no idea where humans got that bizarre idea from. Not the Engelons, that's for sure. My brethren would never have wasted the effort to learn about you."

"But you did?"

"They had to put me somewhere. I was…not very good at, well, anything." Jensen only manages to smile out of one side of his mouth. "Jared, I was supposed to be looking for weaknesses. And weaknesses were all I found. But every day I watched humans tramp around on the surface, suffering and loving and I didn’t understand any of it, but I knew that it was beautiful somehow. It was so much more than anyone could have experienced among my kin."

"Engelons not big on hugging?"

Jensen feels his face fall. "Engelons don't feel anything. They don't think of anything but water—that's all they need to survive, so it's all they care about. I never had a friend or a family or even an acquaintance. We didn't have names, so I never knew if I was talking to someone for the first time or for the millionth. It wasn't something I was supposed to know how to wonder about. They look down on creatures like you, Jared. Every attachment you form is a weakness to them."

"You're a Vulcan. I've been rooming with a Vulcan," Jared says with a laugh, holding his hand up in the salute Jensen vaguely remembers from a movie they watched last week. "Live long and prosper?"

"No," Jensen says sharply. "You're not getting it. The Vulcans seem callous to you, right?"

Jared nods. It's a little idiotic, but at least it gives Jensen a model to work with that might get his point across. He's starting to understand the potential benefits of all the fictional stories humans tell each other.

"They suppress emotion, with great effort. Engelons just don't feel it."

"Not anything?"

"Not a damn thing, Jared."

"How does that even—? I can't even imagine it."

Jensen nods. "Yeah. Me neither. But I was always wrong in the head."

Jared frowns. "Then they must be—"

"Monsters," Jensen finishes for him. He looks down at his hands. "And I'm one of them. At least partially."

"If that were the case, you'd still be up there on that ship." Jensen looks up, his eyebrows knitting together, but Jared gives him an encouraging smile. "But I'm thinking it's just the opposite. They rejected you because you're not one of them at all."

"Because I looked like you. Because I acted like you." Jensen lifts his hand. "I woke up one day like this and I couldn't make myself change back."

Jared raises an eyebrow. "You didn't choose to look like this? Because, frankly, you've got the kind of face someone would choose."

"I swear, Jared, I have no control over it. Our minds produce bodies that reflect what we identify with. I'm the first Engelon to have a different form than my kin since before we left our planet, and that was thousands of years ago. And, according to the history books, shifts back on our planet were rare and only ever minor adjustments for practical reasons. What I did—it's unheard of and they hated me for it."

"So what do you usually look like?"

Jensen points to his crotch and gives Jared a wry smile. "Kind of like that, only all over."

"Shiny," Jared says.

He laughs, trying to keep his voice light. "In case you thought the dick thing was repulsive. You should have seen my last form."

"Repulsive? No, Jensen, I just—you took me by surprise is all."

He tries not to let himself look too hopeful. "So you don't hate me?"

"I couldn't hate you for being what you are, Jen."

"And for lying to you? Letting you believe I was human this whole time?"

Jared shakes his head. "I don't blame you. It's not something you can walk right up to most people and say."

"Should I leave?"

"Where would you go?" Jared replies. "I told you, you have a home here as long as you want it, Jensen. The way I see it, nothing's changed."

"I can pay you back now that you know what I am, Jared. I can offer you something that'll make you happy."

Jensen sees Jared's body tense, but he manages to keep his expression neutral. "Oh yeah? What's that."

"I can erase your memories. One touch from my tentacle, and I can take them right out of you. You won't have to hurt anymore."

Jared's expression collapses from hopeful to something in the vicinity of disgust. "What?"

"You can forget about your family," he says. "And you'll never have to cry again."

"They're my _family_ ," Jared replies icily. "I love them."

"But they're dead now." Jared winces, but Jensen continues, "All they do now is hurt you."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to forget about them," Jared says, like he's angry at first, but then his expression changes until he just seems to pity Jensen. "I'm sorry, Jensen. You still don't understand a damned thing about being human."

"I'm trying," Jensen replies, unable to keep the sting out of his voice. "I'm trying so hard."

Jared's lips thin, but he gives Jensen a stilted nod. "Look, I just need a little time to think, okay? This was…a lot to take in."

Jensen's hand lingers on Jared's leg as he stands. "I wish I had a way to prove to you how hard I've been trying."

_______________________________________________________________

"So…" Jared finds Jensen in the living room the next day around noon. He can tell from the way Jared is dressed, loose t-shirt and sweatpants, that he's just returned from his run, but he never heard Jared leave. "I think I owe you an apology."

" _You_ owe _me_ an apology, Jared?"

"I was a dick yesterday." He lets that sit for a few seconds, then nods decisively. "Yes, I was a dick."

Jensen tries to wave him off. "It's not like you had a good reason, either…"

Jared shakes his head insistently. "There's no good reason. I never meant to make you feel excluded or unwanted or like there's something wrong with you. That's what they did to you, and just because your situation is a little—ok, a lot—different from what I assumed it was, that doesn't give me an excuse to turn into them. So I'm sorry. You meant well. I shouldn't have responded like I did."

"I said the wrong thing," Jensen replies with a shrug. "Wasn't the first time. Won't be the last."

"Yeah," Jared says, dragging out the word. "For future reference, maybe don't make that offer to anyone ever again."

"But why? Why would anyone _want_ to remember something that hurts them?"

"The same reason we want to die sometimes. The same reason we hurt people we love. Isn't it obvious?"

Jensen shakes his head.

Jared's serious expression wavers, and he can't keep his smile in any longer. "Because we're idiots, Jensen. Every human on Earth is a masochistic self-loathing moron, and you just signed up to be one of us."

Jensen laughs, picking up a cushion from the sofa and slapping it over Jared's face. Jared shoves the pillow away and gives Jensen a warm look after a while. "I hope you never do learn, Jen. It sucks a lot."

"I wish I could, but I don't think I ever will." He frowns. "I'm never going to fit anywhere, am I?"

"You fit here," Jared promises. "And you have my permission to tentacle slap me the next time I make you feel otherwise."

"If you think I'm gonna let you forget that promise, Padalecki, you are one sad, mistaken sack of flesh."

They're quiet through one repeat of a show about demon hunting brothers that Jared insists he only watches because one of the brothers is hot (Jensen doesn't believe that for a second, judging by the way he gets scolded if he ever tries to talk through it), and then Jared turns to him.

"How would you feel about meeting another human?"

Jensen gives him a sideways glance. "Why do you ask, Jared?"

"I invited my neighbor Genevieve over for dinner tonight. A few days ago. Before realizing this meant I would be introducing her to E.T."

"I'll try my best to act normal," Jensen says. "I had you fooled for a couple of months there, but I guess literally anyone will probably be smarter, so…"

"I hate you so much," Jared tells him warmly.

Jensen grins as Jared gets up and walks to the kitchen.

He spends the next few hours cooking and even enlists Jensen to help with tasks that "even your wiggly ass can't screw up." Mostly, Jensen becomes very intimate with the ritual of peeling a potato.

"I like cooking," he says.

Jared turns to look at him from where he's laboring over a pot on the stove and narrows his eyes. "That's because you've spent the whole day sneaking tastes of stuff I told you wasn't ready yet."

"That's a lie," Jensen says, shifting so the tomato slice he'd hijacked is hidden from view.

"Suavity is not one of your strengths, man," Jared replies, advancing on him and reaching back, struggling until Jensen surrenders the tomato, only to the pop it into his mouth.

"Hey, you shouldn't eat that," Jensen tells him. "It isn't ready yet."

"Oh, you are impossible." Jared takes a step closer, pushing Jensen back into the counter. "Who's gonna stop me?"

Before Jensen gets a chance to reply, there's a knock at the door and Sadie starts barking hysterically. Jared slumps a little, looking disappointed as he pulls back and puts some space between himself and Jensen. Jensen's not sure why, but he's a little disappointed, too.

"Do you think you can welcome our guest while I keep my eyes on this, or will you scare her away?"

"The only thing that'll scare her away, Jared, is _your face_."

Jared snorts. "Outer space living sure did wonders for your maturity level."

When Jensen opens the door, he's greeted by a pretty, petite brunette with two dogs in tow. They immediately set to sniffing at Sadie, and Genevieve gives Jensen a confused smile.

"Hello, you don't look anything like I remembered."

Jensen smiles and steps aside to welcome her in. "Hi, Genevieve. We've been expecting you. Jared's in the kitchen finishing up dinner, so he told me to let you in."

"Uh huh," she says, her eyes sweeping up and down Jensen's body. "And you are?"

"My name's Jensen. I'm a friend of Jared's. House guest, or whatever."

He holds out his hand to shake, because he's pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do when you meet a human, but Genevieve just places a big, green bottle in his hand and then bends over to unclip her dogs' leashes.

"Friend, right." Genevieve winks when she stands back up, and Jensen is so confused he decides to lead her back to Jared before he really does give himself away. Maybe women are just harder to fool than men are. Or maybe Jared is just exceptionally trusting. Either way, she's looking at him like she has all his deepest secrets figured out, and it makes him want to fidget.

"Hello, hello," Jared calls out, grinning when the first small dog reaches the kitchen and begins to circle his heels. "Is that Indy?"

"Oh, sure, give the dog all the attention."

Jared stands up straight and makes a face at Genevieve, then picks her up and swings her in a circle. "How's that, princess?"

"Good enough." She smacks him on the shoulder and inclines her head toward Jensen. "Have you been withholding information on me?"

Jared follows her movement and makes a distressed face when he sees Jensen. He grabs the bottle out of Jensen's hand and gives him a quick pat on the shoulder. "Here, I'll take that."

Now empty-handed, Jensen shoves both of his hands into his pockets awkwardly.

Jared looks to the food on the stove and then back to his guest. "Why don't you guys head to the table? I'm just about ready to serve."

"Okay, but don't you wanna tell me about your crazy hot new boyfriend first?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Jensen hears Jared tell her as he's walking across the room.

Jared and Genevieve stay in the corner whispering a few minutes longer, so Jensen sets the table and sits down, waiting until they join him.

Then Genevieve grabs three glasses and the big green bottle and takes the seat next to Jensen, pushing her chair a little closer. "So, Jensen, tell me a little about yourself."

Jensen panics, looking from her to Jared and back again as she pours a dark red liquid into one of the glasses and sets it in front of him. "I'm from Canada," he tells her, and then he stares uncomfortably at the table, because that's about as far into his fake biography as he got before Jared found out the truth.

"Jensen and I have been friends since we were kids," Jared lies easily, carrying a large chicken over to the table and placing it in the middle. "We went to camp together. Isn't that right, Jen?"

"Yes, camp," Jensen agrees. "In Canada."

He reaches out to take a sip of his drink, and then suddenly Jared is behind him, snatching it out of his hand. He shakes his head at Genevieve before she can pour a third glass. "Don't drink that."

Jensen gives him a puzzled look, but Jared just gives him a strained smile. "Jensen is three years sober," he says, knocking on the wooden table. "So, you know. No alcoholic beverages. Not even wine."

His eyes widen when he realizes what he almost put in his system and he hardly manages to repress a full-body shiver. It doesn't look anything like the beer that had nearly killed him, but he's happy to shove the glass away.

"Right. No wine. Wine is the enemy." Jensen gives Jared a thankful look, and Jared just huffs out a laugh. "I almost forgot."

"Shit, I'm sorry!" Genevieve says, pulling the bottle back and letting it rest on Jared's side of the table.

From there, Jared manages to steer the conversation away from Jensen, asking Genevieve a series of questions about her life since they last saw each other. Apparently, he and Genevieve grew up side-by-side, but now she works in San Francisco and they rarely get to hang out.

The evening is pleasant enough, even if Jensen misses being the center of Jared's attention a little bit. Genevieve is funny, and she and Jared clearly have a rich history. Their conversation is full of jokes Jensen doesn't think he would understand even if he were human.

It's a good research opportunity, if nothing else, to sit quietly and observe the way they communicate, especially as the night goes on and they polish off the bottle of wine between the two of them.

As they're finishing their meal, Genevieve turns her attention back to Jensen. "So, Jensen. I still haven't heard anything about you." She leans forward in a way that has Jensen's eyes dodging down to her chest before he realizes he's doing it, and that makes her lips curl up in the corners. "Jared tells me you're single."

"I, uh," Jensen replies, looking over to Jared for help. But Jared's just staring at his wine, looking like he's not paying any attention at all to the conversation at hand. "I guess I am."

"And are you straight?" she adds, her foot brushing his ankle under the table. "Would you like to walk me home? It's only a mile or so from here. Bet it'd be a real nice stroll in the moonlight."

"Am I straight?" Jensen echoes the question, again trying to look to Jared for an answer. Jared looks up like he wants to know the answer, too, like it hasn't occurred to him that Jensen doesn't understand the fucking question. "Yes. Yeah, I am."

Genevieve's eyes spark, but Jared seems to deflate a little. "You know, why don’t I just give you two some privacy?"

He stands up abruptly, taking his wine with him as he stomps out. Jensen tracks his movement across the room, then looks to Genevieve, who has a sick expression on her face. "Shit. I didn't realize it was like that," she says.

"Like what?" Jensen asks.

She looks back at him then like she's not really sure she believes he's as confused as he's acting, and then she stands, too, straightening out her skirt and giving him a brief smile. "It was nice meeting you, Jen. But I think I'm gonna get the hell out of here before this whole thing blows up even more."

He watches her chase after Jared, and after about fifteen minutes, Jensen hears the front door to the house close behind her. He waits a little while before going into the living room where he finds Jared standing with his back to the kitchen.

"So, I have no idea what just happened." He stops next to Jared and looks up. "Mind filling me in?"

Jared looks down at him thoughtfully. "You think she'd be into the tentacles?"

Jensen blushes. "I don't—"

"I doubt it, but you can go ahead and try."

He tries to brush past Jensen then, but Jensen catches him by the arm. Jared turns back and makes an upset face. "Fuck, I'm sorry, Jensen. I'm acting like a child."

"You're jealous," Jensen says as he realizes. "Is that it?"

Jared looks down at the ground.

"Is it me you're jealous of, or her?"

Jared laughs humorlessly and meets Jensen's eyes. "C'mon, who do you think?"

"I think you tried to kiss me a few weeks ago and I didn’t get it at the time." Jensen gives Jared a faint smile. "And I didn't think you would want me anymore after the way you responded to…"

He gestures down, and Jared laughs and ducks his head, but Jensen puts a hand on his cheek and turns Jared's face toward his again. "I think you're insane if you really believe I want anyone but you."

"You were more responsive to her in fifteen minutes than you've been to any of my attempts for the last month and a half."

Jensen rolls his eyes. "Dude, will you please try to remember that I have less than no idea what I'm doing here? I don't know how to flirt. I don't know when I'm being flirted with. Frankly, I don't even really know what I want to do with you, but I know I've wanted to be as close to you as possible from the first day I woke up."

"Jensen," Jared whispers. "Please be sure. Don't get my hopes up if you're not sure."

"You have to teach me," he says, rising onto his toes so he can reach Jared. "But I want to learn."

Jared turns his head just right and his mouth closes over Jensen's. This time, Jensen is a little more aware of what to do. He opens up to Jared, and Jared kisses him slowly, his tongue teasing into Jensen's mouth and coaxing Jensen to do the same. So Jensen tries it, deepening the kiss.

They continue for a long while, Jared's hands coming up to frame Jensen's face and hold him closer, but Jensen can't help thinking that there's more, more Jared's not sharing with him, and he knows he wants it.

He breaks the kiss, trailing his nose on Jared's jaw and biting at the stubble-rough skin. "Jared. I don't know what to ask for."

"Fuck, Jensen," Jared murmurs. "Fuck."

He moves his hands down then, grabbing Jensen's ass and pulling him up just as easy as if he was made out of air. Jensen wraps his legs around Jared's hips and keeps kissing him as Jared walks them down the hallway.

Then Jared kicks open the door to his bedroom and drops Jensen onto the mattress. He stands at the end of the bed, grinning devilishly as he pulls his shirt up and off over his head. Jensen does the same, but he hesitates before removing his pants and looks up to see Jared has stripped down to his boxers but is also lingering before pushing them down.

"I just realized my dick is probably gonna look kind of weird to you," he says, biting his bottom lip.

Jensen laughs. "This is all weird to me. I promise I'll get used to it."

Jared nods and waits another beat before removing his underwear quickly, like he's tearing off a band-aid. He gets onto the bed and crawls up next to Jensen before Jensen can really get a look at him, but Jensen stops him with a hand on his chest before Jared can distract him with another kiss.

Jared's dick is a long, thick line, half-erect already. There's a dark patch of wiry hairs leading from his belly button and thickening as it goes down, just like on Jensen's body, but that's about where the similarities end. Jensen never would have thought his human body should look like this naked, but it's not unattractive. Just different.

"I was pretty far off target," Jensen says, staring at Jared's cock.

Jared laughs, his eyes getting darker as his hands move down and rest over the fly of Jensen's jeans. "Jensen, let me see you again."

"You're sure you want to?" Jensen asks. "I can make you feel good just like this, and you can pretend—"

"Trust me, I am surprisingly okay with the tentacles." He smiles almost shyly and begins to slowly unzip Jensen's pants. "They've, uh, been haunting my thoughts all day."

So Jensen lets Jared finish undressing him, closing his eyes tightly when he hears Jared suck in a breath. "Still with me, Jay?"

"Yeah," Jared breathes. Jensen opens his eyes to see Jared's attention is fixed on his crotch, and the hot gaze seems to actually reach into him and make his blood boil.

"Jared," he says desperately. "Oh god, Jared, _do something_."

"I wanna try…" He looks up quickly. "Can I try something? It might seem kinda weird."

Jensen nods and watches in fascination as Jared bends over and tries to take the thickest of the tentacles into his mouth. It starts with a gentle lick at the tip, Jared's fingers running up the length of Jensen to hold him still as he nurses on the end of Jensen's shaft. But the stimulation has an immediate effect, and Jensen's tentacle tries to push its way as deep into Jared as possible before Jensen can even think to control it.

Jared pulls away, wiping his hand over his mouth, and Jensen feels flushed with embarrassment. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't mean to—"

Jared shakes his head, dodging back down to take two of the smaller appendages into his mouth this time. Jensen's head falls back as he lets out a cry—a mix of pain and pleasure as Jared's tongue plays between the two thinner tendrils in his mouth.

"Jared. Oh god, Jared, what are you doing?" Jensen's body writhes, but all five of his tentacles are lost to him, moving in their own desperate rhythms. It's so good—Jensen never, not in a million years, could have imagined anything could feel like this.

If it feels this way for humans, he definitely understands why they do it so often.

Jared sits up, holding the tentacles that try to work their way back into his mouth at arms length. "'S it good, Jensen?" he asks in a throaty voice. "Do you like it?"

Jensen nods eagerly. "Please, more."

"Yeah," Jared replies, his eyes moving over Jensen's body and then back up to his face. "I've got more for you."

He doesn't go down on Jensen again, but before Jensen can get too disappointed, he's wrapping his big hand around the thickest of Jensen's tentacles. The limb is so pleased by the action that it begins to wrap around Jared's wrist, working its way up until it's constricting Jared's arm like a vine.

Jared laughs, the fingers of his other hand brushing gently over the smooth skin until Jensen is able to control it enough to release Jared.

"In the interest of your sexual education, Jen, most dicks do not do that when you try to give them a handjob."

"Is it bad?" Jensen asks. "Should I stop?"

He hopes not. He doesn’t think he _can_ stop.

"No, fuck, no." Jared licks his lips and then he's looking at Jensen seriously again. "I want you to fuck me."

"I can do that," Jensen replies. He stops to think it over, then gives Jared a bashful smile. "Uh, how do I do that?"

"Hold on," Jared says. He rolls over and opens the drawer of the nightstand next to his bed and then he pulls out a small, orange tube. "I want you to fuck me with the big one, but first you gotta open me up." He blushes a little, but manages to keep going. "I think you can use the smaller ones to do that? It, uh, it's gonna be a learning process, obviously."

"Open you up where?"

Jared lies back against the pillows, spreading his legs. His dick is now completely hard, and Jensen gets the urge to touch it, to use his mouth on Jared like Jared had done to him. But then Jared squeezes a clear gel out of the tube and onto his fingers, and he reaches down, past his cock, and presses two fingers in.

Jensen's eyes feel like they grow bigger as he watches. "Oh," he says.

Jared nods, licking his lips, and then pulls his fingers away and extends the tube out toward Jensen. "Think you wanna try, Jen?"

"I…won't it hurt you?"

"Maybe," Jared says with a shrug. "Bet it'll be worth all that."

"Jared, are you really sure you wanna—?"

"I like getting fucked," he says. "I really like it. And, uh, maybe I've never had anything quite like that," his eyes dodge down to Jensen's thickest tentacle, "but I really wanna try." He pulls Jensen closer as his fingers circle one of the tendrils and guides it into his body. "You're gonna like it, Jen. I'mma be so tight for you. Haven't been with anyone in years."

He can't really resist a sales pitch like that, like he's the only person Jared wants and the only one who'll get him. He just hopes it's good, like Jared thinks it'll be.

Jared helps him get ready, rubbing what he calls lube over two of Jensen's tendrils before moving on to the tentacle and spreading the gel all up and down. "How do you freaking hide this thing in pants?" Jared asks, laughing as he works Jensen over.

"I can make them as big or as small as I want to," Jensen says. He'd kind of thought that part was obvious.

Apparently not, because Jared's mouth drops open. "You can do what now?"

Jensen tries to pull the tentacles in, but it nearly hurts from how hard they’re refusing. "Okay, I guess I can't pull them in when I'm turned on, but usually."

"This is going to blow my mind," Jared tells him. He smiles at Jensen and pulls the tendrils forward, but they've gotten the message and begin to take control of the situation. The two that haven't been lathered in lube each grab onto one side of Jared's ass, holding him open so that first one wet tendril, then the other can slide into him.

Jared stays propped up on his elbows so that he can look down, and Jensen watches Jared's expression tense and then release as he tests the limits of how deep he can probe.

"Yes," Jared says, his head dropping back exposing a long, tan line of throat. "Oh god, yes."

Jensen echoes Jared's cries, loving the dark, hot catch of Jared's ass around him, and he begins to move in deeper with each thrust forward as two of the tentacles take turns fucking into Jared.

"Feels so good, Jensen," Jared tells him. His hands curl tightly in the sheets. "Oh god, just this. I could—fuck, I could come just like this."

"Do you want to?" Jensen asks. He'd be pretty okay with it, but Jared shakes his head.

"Nah, give me the big one."

"You're sure?" Jensen asks, pulling out of Jared, feeling his limbs begin to twist together trying to resist the urge to fuck back into Jared whether the human wants them there or not.

Jared nods, and then his cheeks go pink and he averts his gaze. "Could you…tie me up with the other ones?"

Jensen lifts an eyebrow. "What?"

"I like…I like to be tied up, and you have—oh god, Jensen, please. I know it's kind of weird, but please, please."

Jensen pins him down then, one of the ropelike tentacles extending out farther than it has since Jensen took human form, wrapping around Jared's wrists and holding them over his head.

Jared tries to struggle and lets out a heavy groan when he's unable to gain any ground. Jensen sees a white collecting at the tip of Jared's cock and instinctively knows it's because he's got Jared good and turned on.

He decides to try to take a little more control over the situation. "You like that, Jay? You like that I've got you at my mercy?"

Jared opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, there's a tentacle wrapping around his lips, sliding in and playing with Jared's tongue.

Jared begins to make desperate sounds, and Jensen doesn't know if they're pleasure or panic, but he's lost himself, and very suddenly he realizes he can't stop what he's started. His largest tentacle does what Jared asked for then, pushing into him, even though it's thicker than both of the others had been put together and Jared's not ready for it. The fit is rough at first, Jared not able to relax enough to let make room for Jensen, but then Jensen strokes a hand over his cheek and whispers, "Shh, it's okay, Jay. Just relax. Be good for me."

Jared's eyes roll back in his head as he nods, and then Jensen broaches him, sinking into Jared like he's the goddamn ocean.

Jensen makes the tentacle just the right size so that there isn’t an inch of room left inside of Jared, his body flush against Jared where they're meeting. He doesn't have to move his hips to set Jared off; he creates a wave with the length of his shaft, pressing repeatedly against the places that make Jared struggle harder and begin to make loud sounds under his gag.

It's incredible, not only the feel of it, but the way Jared is looking up at him, like he trusts Jensen to do this to him. Jensen feels powerful, which is a thing he's never felt before in his life, and it builds low in his gut until he realizes—he doesn't know what comes next, but something's coming.

"Jared," he says, confused. "Jared, I feel."

"Mmm," Jared moans, sucking a little on the tentacle in his mouth before meeting Jensen's gaze. Jared's eyes are heavy lidded, and he looks filthy and fucking gorgeous, even with Jensen wrapped all around him.

His eyes dodge down, between their legs, and then back up at Jensen. Jensen can see that he's begging for something, but he doesn't know what, so he slows down and lets the tentacle wrapped around Jared's mouth fall limp.

"My dick, Jensen. Please, fucking touch me."

Oh, right. Jensen feels abashed, but he knows he can make it up to Jared. He sends two tentacles down to Jared's cock and they wrap up the length of him, stroking him the way Jared had done to him. Jared's hips begin to thrust out of control into the pressure, and it's the sudden overstimulation that comes with Jared's frantic rocking that makes Jensen realize he's about to spill over the edge.

"Jared, I don't understand what's—"

"Shh," Jared says with a laugh. "You're gonna come," he says. "It's gonna be good, I promise."

Jensen nods and keeps working away inside of Jared, his hips now pumping forward not because he needs to do it but because it's instinct to this body.

"I'm so close," Jared says, turning his face into his pillow. "So close."

"Let me see, Jared," Jensen begs. "Please, I wanna see."

Jared moans his name, arching his body up off the bed. When he climaxes, Jensen knows, not just from the shout Jared lets out, but from the sudden wetness spilling from the tip of Jared's dick. His tentacles stay where they are, milking the rest of Jared's orgasm, hungry for the moisture, until Jared is spent, collapsing down onto the bed with heavy breathing.

Jensen pulls out and releases Jared's arms, which makes Jared sit up and try to catch the limb to drag it back in. "Jen, you can come inside of me."

Jensen shakes his head, wrapping his hand around the end of his tentacle and beginning to work himself the way Jared showed him. His release only takes seconds, and then black ink spills out onto Jared's torso, right by his belly button, just like he feared it would.

"Whoa, what the fuck?" Jared asks.

Jensen feels mortified, covering his face with his hands. "It's…how we…mark what’s ours."

He hears a laugh, and Jared pries his hands away from his face, forcing Jensen to look at him. "It's okay, Jensen. It's okay."

"I'm sorry it's so different. I can't—couldn't help—"

"God, shut up," Jared says, pulling him in for a deep kiss. "That was the hottest fucking thing that's ever happened to me, okay? Black jizz or not."

"It's actually ink," Jensen admits. "And, uh, we should wash it off of you before it dries. It'll stain you if it dries."

Jared snorts; he rises carefully from the bed, making sure not to let the ink spill on his sheets. "My life is so fucking bizarre."

Once he's washed off, he climbs back into bed and rests his head on Jensen's chest, like he's trying to settle the question of whether Jensen should stay for the night before it's asked. So Jensen smiles and plays lazily with the ends of Jared's hair as he begins to drift to sleep.

"You don't have a heart, do you?" Jared asks after a while, propping his chin on Jensen's chest and looking up.

Jensen finds Jared's eyes and gives him an unsure smile. "Is that a problem?"

"It's not exactly reassuring when you pull a guy out of a river and can't find his heartbeat," Jared says, laughing as he turns his face and kisses Jensen's stomach. "But I saw you move, so I thought it must have just been my own pulse was racing so fast it was confusing me. I kept telling myself that."

"I have a very strong brainbeat," Jensen assures him.

"Right, well." Jared takes Jensen's hand and presses it to his own chest, so Jensen can feel the steady drum of his heart. "You can borrow mine."

Jensen smiles and closes his eyes. The pounding is oddly soothing, and he feels safe and happy and warm and wanted with Jared's lifeline under his fingers, promising he's found something real and alive to hold on to. It lulls him to sleep that night and for many nights after.

_______________________________________________________________

Things are almost impossibly perfect for the weeks that follow once he and Jared figure their relationship out. Jensen doesn't have anything left to hide, and most of the time he forgets that floating just inside the Earth's atmosphere, there's a whole ship of monsters just like him planning evil.

He and Jared go for runs nearly every day; Jensen is confident and sure on his legs now, and he only falls when he's running after Jared, tackling the human into the ground and kissing him until Jared begs for mercy.

Jared takes him into town when they need to buy more food, ostensibly because Jensen should help him carry his load if he's going to eat everything in his path, but as soon as they pass anyone Jared knows, he uses it as a chance to introduce Jensen, as if they're lucky just to have the privilege of shaking his hand.

But Jensen's favorite days are the ones like today, when they make it out to the lake and spend the day swimming. They don't bother wearing trunks anymore, and Jensen never feels more natural than he does with his tentacles submerged, drinking in the cool water. He has a little more control over his form when he's got that much water around him and can pull more and more tentacles out of himself, using them to drag Jared in from the shore or toss him around, as easy as if he was a toy. Jared should probably be disgusted by it, but instead he laughs and calls Jensen his kraken and lets Jensen wrap him up tightly as they swim.

Whoever said you could have too much of a good thing never fucked Jared Padalecki while _submerged in water_.

Jared is snapping at Jensen's heels with his wet towel as they pile in through the door at the end of a good, tiring day. Sadie keeps trying to jump up and catch the fabric before it hits Jensen, and Jensen is about two towel slaps away from knocking the thing out of Jared's hands with a tentacle and shoving him up against the wall, teaching him a lesson about being so damn annoying, with another.

Come to think of it, that may just be what Jared's been trying to get at.

Jared turns on the TV and Jensen hears the news begin to filter through the living room as he heads to the kitchen to put a pot on the stove for pasta. Once that's taken care of, he walks back out to find Jared staring in wide-eyed horror at the television screen, his hands clasped to his throat.

He joins Jared and sees why. The images flashing by are terrifying, and Jensen's entire world falls away when he recognizes them.

Mysterious deaths, the headline scrolling at the bottom says, but there's nothing mysterious about them to Jensen. Three teenage boys, lying dead and shriveled, with strange marks around their necks. Neat little rows of two by two. Jensen knows they were caused by suction cups latched too tight onto that skin.

He'd known his brethren had come to the Earth's surface on one or two runs while he was still on-ship, just to confirm that it was inhabitable. They'd been careful, though, not to be spotted, or at least that's how they'd worded it. Jensen had never thought that careful might have meant killing anyone who saw them instead of not being seen, and he can't help wondering if these were the first humans to get unlucky or just three more bodies.

"We did this," he says. "That's—an Engelon did that."

Jared takes a step back, away from Jensen, as if he's just seen a bug out of the corner of his eye. "What do you mean?"

Jensen swallows hard and turns to look at him. "It's what bodies look like after we drain them of their water. I've never seen them do it to a human, but I've seen other species, on other planets. It's definitely—"

Jared's expression only gets more confused, and when Jensen tries to reach out to shake some sense into him, Jared pushes his hand away like it disgusts him. "That's how my family died, Jensen. That's—you did it."

Jensen wheels back as if he's just been slapped. "No, Jared, not me. I would never—"

"Why should I believe you?" Jared asks, rounding on him. "You just said _we_."

"I meant—that's just how we—they—that's just how Engelons talk. Whatever one does, we all do, but not me, not really."

"But you were okay with it?"

"Obviously not," Jensen replies, passing a hand over his mouth. "Or I wouldn't be here right now."

"Why are you here?" Jared asks. "Why are you here, really?"

"I'm here because of you," Jensen tells him softly. "Isn't that obvious?"

Jared laughs bitterly. "I'm so stupid. I can't believe how stupid I am. You fall out of the sky and you're everything I need you to be, and I didn't ever stop to think this was a trap."

"It's not a trap, Jay. Why would they go to all that trouble just to fuck with you?"

"I don't know," Jared says, his eyes going wild. "You tell me. Why me? Why my family? What did I do to you…you _things_? You took everything from me and then you gave me a little bit of hope just to crush it. Couldn't you just have killed me in my sleep, Jensen?"

"That's not why I'm here. You must know that, deep down. I understand that you're hurt right now, and I don't blame you. But I never lied to you about how I feel."

"Yeah, that's true." Jared shoves him. "You told me you don't feel anything."

Jensen stumbles back, but he holds his hand out to still Jared and gives him an imploring look. "I'm not one of them. What can I do to make you believe me?"

Jared hesitates, his face wavering between anger and forgiveness. "Swear to me," he says. "Swear that you never drank their water. That you never drank anything that was taken from a human."

Jensen feels stunned, and for a long minute he doesn't move. He's torn between a lie, a little white lie, because the chances are he never did, and he could just say he didn't. Drinking from someone directly doesn't lend easily to sharing—Jensen can't imagine an Engelon relinquishing that water once it's been absorbed. But, well, he doesn't really know. He never asked. He never bothered to ask.

"I…I don't know, Jared," he says. "I didn't harness water. I just drank what they gave me."

"Oh my god," Jared says, putting his hand over his mouth and stepping back again. "Oh my god, I let you…"

"Jared, I told you what I used to be. I told you they were monsters."

"Yeah, but you left out the part where you drank my entire family dry." He tangles his hands into his hair, pulling at it. "Oh _god_."

"I didn't know! It never occurred to me that—"

"Yeah, you know, it didn’t occur to me, either. That I might be fucking the thing that ruined my life." Jared's eyes fill with tears, and Jensen wishes he could cry too, just to have an outlet for everything building up inside of him. He hasn't seen Jared cry in almost a month, and now he's caused it. "You never told me you were just a goddamn parasite."

"Jay," he says feeling his legs shaking under him. "Don't say that to me."

He steps forward, trying to put a gentle hand on Jared's shoulder, but Jared steps back so fast he nearly trips on his own couch. "Don't touch me," Jared tells him. "I already hate myself enough for wanting you to touch me."

Jared turns then, storming out and slamming the door to his bedroom. Jensen stands, too shocked by everything that just happened to move until finally he feels Sadie nudging at his leg and he blinks, slowly finding himself back in the moment. A part of him thought it might be a nightmare, and that if he stared off long enough he'd wake up with Jared's arm around him and never have to worry again that he might have had some part in what happened to Jared's family.

Instead, he recovers his wits with just enough time to catch the bodies circling on the screen again. He scrambles for the remote and turns the TV off before it can make him feel any guiltier, and then he goes to his room—the room he hasn't slept in since he started sharing Jared's bed.

It feels wrong to be there now, but Jensen figures that pretty soon Jared will probably throw him out altogether. He should enjoy having a bed while he can.

He doesn't sleep. It's still too early to be tired, and he's lying in bed more out of a dejected sense that he has nothing better to do, letting his mind drift and feeling sorry for himself. It might be hours before he hears the door creak as it's pushed open, but with his back to it, he assumes the noise is just Sadie, who scrambles up onto the bed and curls up at his feet. He doesn't realize Jared let her in until his bed dips, and then there's a big hand on the side of his head, stroking through his hair.

"I brought you dinner, Jensen," Jared says softly.

Jared doesn't turn to look at him. "I hope it's people. That's all we monsters eat, you know."

Jared huffs a laugh at that and his hand slides down to Jensen's shoulder, turning Jensen over. "I'm sorry, Jen. I said awful things."

"And you meant them. And you're not really sorry. Look, I'll leave in the morning, okay? I'd rather not stay here knowing you're always going to think of me like that."

"I won't. I promise." Jared's lip trembles and he climbs up into bed. "Jensen, I am sorry. I am so sorry. It's just—it's hard for me, okay? Dealing with all this. I mean, first I find out I'm living with an alien and then my boyfriend happens to be related to the things that killed my family. I know you're good. I know you're not one of them. I was just scared and confused and I lashed out. And I'm so fucking sorry, but—people are stupid. We've been over this. I swear, I only meant it when I said it, and I've spent the last two hours too ashamed of myself to come apologize."

"I'm not _related_ to them, Jay. I am _one of them_. I hate it more than you do, but that doesn't change it. And…I really can't promise I'm clean."

"It doesn't matter. You weren't a part of it. I don't control where my food comes from any more than you did. Not since I gave up farming, at least."

"You should get back into that," Jensen mutters. "Wouldn't trust people any more than Engelons."

"I've been meaning to, anyway. For the last few weeks. I've been thinking about trying to get something going in time for the growing season next year." Jared bites his lip and looks away. "I thought you and I might be happy like that."

Jensen looks up at him, finally really looks, and sees a nervous edge in Jared's expression, like he really means that he's sorry and he doesn't want Jensen to leave first thing tomorrow.

Jensen sits up, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging his arms around them. "I don't want to have to wonder if this is gonna happen every time you remember what I am, Jared."

"I can do better, Jensen. It's just scary, you know? To realize these things exist." He looks down at his hands. "There're still up there, aren't they? Waiting. They want to wipe us off the map and take over?"

"Yes," Jensen says. He frowns. "I can feel them, you know. I'm still connected to them, however distantly. They won't leave this planet unless they've drained it. Not as long as they have a choice."

"Then we have to do something," Jared tells him. "We have to stop them. We might be the only people who know there's a threat, and…and…I need to do something, Jensen, so that I know I'm not just letting another family go through what I did. And you—you don't need to prove to me that you're not one of them. But, I think, maybe you need to prove that to yourself."

"I want to stop them." Jensen's eyebrows draw together. "But we're only two. How can we make any difference?" He laughs dismissively. "Who would listen to us that could do anything to help?"

"I think I might know a guy. He's been my friend for years and I'd trust him with my life. I think he can help us." Jared smiles tentatively. "We can go to him tomorrow. Until then…"

Jensen draws him closer and presses his lips to Jared's. "Until then, you owe me make up sex."

_______________________________________________________________

Jared's friend Misha works for something called NASA in a city named Houston. The drive is nearly four hours long, which feels interminable to Jensen, who has never gone farther in a car than the nearest town to Jared's ranch.

They spend another half an hour getting routed through security before Misha finally comes to fetch them and leads them on a guided tour through the buildings. Jared seems genuinely interested in the things his friend points out, but Jensen is too much on edge, and, besides, to someone born and raised on an interstellar craft, human space technology is frankly embarrassing.

He feels nothing but relief when they reach the laboratories Misha declares to be his 'home' and the door to Misha's office closes behind them, finally giving them privacy.

"So," Misha says as he walks to his desk and sits down, kicking his feet up onto the surface of the table. "You said you have something important to discuss when you called me out of the blue for the first time in two years and demanded I clear my schedule for you." Misha makes a hurt face. "By the way, how about sending a Christmas card every now and then?"

Jared frowns. "I'm sorry, Mish. I wasn't in a good place."

"I heard," he says, and when Jared looks surprised, he clarifies, "Genevieve."

"Ah, right. Well."

"I'm sorry, Jared," Misha adds. "They were good people."

"Yeah," Jared agrees. Jensen presses his palm to the small of Jared's back, as supportive as he can be without saying anything, and Jared holds himself together a lot better than Jensen would have expected. "It looks like I might have a chance to make things right. At least, as right as they can get. But I need your help."

"My help?" Misha asks, raising an eyebrow.

"My boyfriend, Jensen," Jared says, pointing.

Jensen steps forward and holds his hand out in greeting, and Misha accepts it, but he looks Jensen up and down and finally glares at Jared. "Did you come here to show off how pretty he is? Are we really still doing this childish competition thing we should have outgrown after undergrad?" Misha keeps the annoyed expression on his face for a few more seconds before grinning. "Because if that is what this is about, I'll have you know that my wife is very enthusiastic about threesomes."

Jared snorts. "No, that is not what this is about. I guess you're never going to grow up."

Misha just gives Jared a skeptical look.

"Do you still believe in aliens?" Jared asks.

"Would I be working here if I didn't?"

"Good," says Jared. He points to Jensen again. "My boyfriend, Jensen, is an alien."

Misha tilts his head and looks between Jared and Jensen, but he doesn't laugh or call Jared a liar. "Well, with that face he'd have to be. Go on."

"He's an alien—and by the way he has five tentacle dicks, _five_ , and they can get as big as he wants them to—" Jared forces a cough. "Not that I'm trying to be competitive here."

Misha turns to Jensen for confirmation. "Five?" he says, disbelieving.

Jensen nods apologetically. "I'm afraid so."

Misha hums to himself, then crosses his arms over his chest. "Well, when you get tired of this one," he inclines his head toward Jared, "my wife and I would love to date you."

"Hey," Jared says, stepping between them. "No poaching my boyfriend!"

"It's no use anyway." Jensen takes a step forward and twines his fingers with Jared's. "Apparently I have really bad taste in humans, so I think I'm stuck with this one for life."

"I hate you," Jared tells him.

"Okay," Misha says, waving his hand. "Delicious possibilities aside, what can I do for you and your charming, five-dicked alien boyfriend?"

"We need you to help us fend off an attack," Jensen says. "The ship I came from—it's full of aliens called Engelons. They want to kill every living thing on this planet so they can take over and live off the water. It's only one ship, but the technology is strong and they're ruthless."

"How long do we have?" Misha asks, surprisingly relaxed and apparently taking everything Jensen says at face value.

"I don’t know," Jensen admits. "I've been off-board for months. But I think you can buy some time fairly easily. They're depending on surprising you—that's the only card they've got right now. You have the numbers and maybe not the technology, but your weapons will be able to bring them down before they can kill all or even a significant portion of you."

"Sounds like they'd be pretty stupid to attack then," Misha says with a shrug.

Jensen shakes his head. "They're desperate, and they've got experience. Not with anything as advanced as human society, but I know how'll they'll try to do it. They figure out some way to alter the atmosphere, so it kills life forms adjusted to it. We breathe, but it doesn't matter what to us. An Engelon body can sustain itself on any gas, as long as it's getting a steady supply of water. And they're running out of water fast. It only takes about a year of research and lab work for them to cook up an atmospheric apocalypse, and they've already been up there for half that long. They want this planet bad; we need to scare them, at least long enough to get the word out to someone—someone powerful who will believe this and act against them."

"I don't know what Jared told you, but I was just an intern at the White House. I ran for coffee. I can't exactly call up the president and get him on board with a story about thirsty aliens."

"No, I think we need to worry about actually striking against them after we've bought some time. For now, it'll spook them enough just to know they've been detected. They won't leave forever—not this planet, but they'll have to at least get out of the Earth's atmosphere, and that'll slow their work down significantly."

"So you want me to put in a phone call to an alien spaceship full of tentacle dicks who want to steal our planet?" Misha says.

"Pretty much," Jared replies. "Can you do it?"

"Can I put in a phone call to aliens? Am I Misha fucking Collins or aren't I?"

"I believe that you are," Jensen says.

"But there's no space ship up there to call. I think I would have noticed a spaceship sitting in the atmosphere, seeing as how I spend pretty much my whole life looking for them."

Jensen shakes his head. "Not this one. It has a cloak that hides the ship from being detected but creates a very, very subtle electromagnetic discrepancy in—"

"In the air immediately surrounding the ship. About 300 miles radius."

"Yes," Jensen says. "How'd you know?"

"Because that ship is sitting right over us, isn't it?"

"Well, judging by the rate they keep dropping on my farm," Jared mutters.

"I've been picking up the irregularities for a few months now. I tried reporting them but they were too small and too sporadic to substantiate. Everyone kept saying it was weather or just random happenstance and I was forcing the connection."

"They were wrong."

Misha pumps his fist into the air, then sobers a little. "I guess I shouldn't be so happy about this."

"Not unless you can contact them."

He swivels in his chair for a few moments, making a thoughtful face. "You're one of them?"

"Unfortunately."

"What's your beef?" Misha asks.

"It's a long story," Jensen replies.

"I'm just finding it a little hard to take your word for it," Misha says. He looks to Jared. "You really trust him?"

"More than myself," Jared says with a quick nod. "These things killed my family, Misha. I wouldn't be bothering you with this if it wasn't serious.

"Eh, good enough." Misha shrugs. "Let's get to work cracking this code then, huh?"

It takes a few hours, not because Misha has any difficulty figuring out how to radio the message, but because all of his prerecorded messages deal with peace and wanting to welcome alien friends to Earth. Humans are kind of painfully stupid on occasion.

"I don't feel comfortable lying to them," Misha says. "Won't it be pretty easy for them to discover I am not, in fact, Emperor of Earth and I don't really have eighty giant lasers trained on their ship ready to fire if they don't leave immediately?"

"You'd think," Jensen says with a laugh. "Look, they're not infallible. They're not idiots, but they're no geniuses, either. They have the technology and scientific know-how to figure that out in moments, sure, but no imagination. It wouldn't occur to them to check."

"You're sure?" Misha asks, hesitating before sending the message.

Jensen looks down at his hands. "I'm one of them, aren't I?"

"Speaking of," Misha says, drumming his fingers on his desk. "Jensen, dear Jensen. Any chance you'd allow me to run a few scans on you? A couple of little tiny tests? Just while we wait for the message to transmit."

"No, no, no," Jared says, cutting in. "You are not turning my boyfriend into a lab rat."

"Oh, come on," Misha begs. "An alien! A real alien! How will I even know you guys aren't lying if I don't check him out?"

"He could show you the tentacles," Jared offers.

Misha makes big blue eyes at Jensen. "Oh please, oh please. I've always wanted to study an alien. I'll keep the results confidential. Just for my records, I swear." He turns the look on Jared. "It might be a good idea in the long run, anyway, to get something that could pass as medical records on him."

Jared's eyes find Jensen's, silently asking for his input. Jensen shrugs. He doesn’t mind a few tests, and Misha is doing them a pretty big favor—and risking his neck in the process.

In the end, Misha's observations serve as a pretty good distraction until the computer beeps, telling them the message went through successfully.

"Houston, we have a problem!" Jared declares.

"What, already?" Jensen asks, rushing to his side.

"No, not really." 

Misha stares at him blankly, his eyes narrowing.

Jared grins sheepishly. "Sorry. I felt like I had to say it at some point."

"Yeah." Misha rolls his eyes. "So does every other dildo that walks in here."

"It worked," Jensen says, a little in awe as the Engelon response to the message begins to tremble through him. "I can feel them," he says, looking up and smiling brightly. "They're terrified. They're already preparing to run."

Misha and Jared share his own disbelieving expression, and they all pat each other on the back. Jared and Jensen say goodbye to Misha after a quick dinner and begin the long drive back to their ranch, and Misha promises to start looking into ways to spread the message to his bosses in a way that won't get ignored.

Jensen represses the whisper of doubt in the back of his mind saying that it was all just a little too easy.

_______________________________________________________________

When the other shoe drops a few days later, Jensen is almost relieved. He knew it couldn't be that simple, but in the grand scheme of things, they got in a win. The Engelons really are running scared, and Jensen doesn't doubt Misha will be able to round up enough evidence to convince someone powerful to at least prepare for the possibility of an attack.

Considering all the millions of ways it could have gone much worse, it's not such a big sacrifice at all. At least, that's what he keeps telling himself, and he knows, intellectually, that it's true.

They figured him out. He should have known they would—there's no other way the humans could have not only discovered them but pinpointed their location, and once the idea occurred to them, it was easy to check and confirm that Jensen is still alive. He can still feel them in the back of his mind when he wants to, which is rare, but the point is, the connection never severed.

And they're furious with him. They send him a message through the psychic connection that doesn't leave much room for interpretation. He has 24-hours to turn himself over to them, or they'll burn him alive. It's a better death than he'll get on-board, but there's no way to burn him without also killing Jared.

They bank on him behaving like a human over Jared, and they're right. They found his weakness.

"I don't get it," Jared says. "If they're angry with you, why haven't they killed you yet?"

"They want me alive," Jensen tells him, swallowing hard. "They'll try to get information out of me, information on how to defeat you. They probably think I have friends in higher places than I do thanks to that message, so they'll be convinced I have some kind of special information."

"Well, it doesn't matter," says Jared. "You're not going."

"I am, Jay," Jensen insists. "I've already made up my mind." 

"Jensen—"

"Jared, they'll burn the planet out of spite if they can't have it. You want me to roll over and let them?"

Jared looks stung, but he still insists. "You said yourself they wouldn't ruin this for themselves. They're probably bluffing. Let's call them on it."

"And if they're not? Everyone dies. Does that seem like an acceptable risk to you?"

Okay, Jensen might have lied to Jared about what the terms the Engelons issued were, but he knows who he's dealing with here. If Jensen admitted that he's going back to them just to save Jared, he would find a way to stop Jensen. He doesn't feel bad lying if it means protecting Jared.

"No, but—"

"But what, Jared?"

"We can think of something," he says to his hands, not looking up at Jensen, and not sounding all that convinced. "Some way to stop them."

"Yeah? In 24-hours? 22 by now. Do you have a ship-destroying ray gun hiding in the barn or something?"

"Don't be catty, Jensen," Jared yells. "You're talking about dying. You're all I've got and you're talking about killing it, so don't you fucking snap at me."

Jensen takes a deep breath and sits next to Jared, taking the human's hand. "You know I don't want to. I know what they'll do to me—I'm fucking terrified. But we've got no time to think of a way out. There's no other option."

"What's to stop them from doing it anyway?" Jared asks. "Once they have you. Just to be nasty."

"If they have me, they'll think they can improve their odds. They'll believe they can win the planet again, so they won't break it. I won't tell them anything useful, Jay. I don't even really know very much if I do crack. It's much safer if I go."

"Not for you it isn't."

"I don't want to fight about this. My decision is made. I'm going back to them tomorrow. It's—in the long run it’s not such a bad deal. I got to have you for a while. I got to help—we might end up saving everyone, Jared, if Misha can round up the defense. And you got to avenge your family."

"I don't feel avenged." Jared looks away as his voice breaks. "I feel like I'm about to lose my family all over again. I couldn’t save them and now you won't even let me try to save you."

Jensen kisses Jared slowly, coaxing Jared to open his mouth up and let the kiss say everything he can't put in words. When he pulls away, he rests his forehead on Jared's. "Can we not spend tonight fighting? Please? If it's my last night, I want to be happy one more time. We can fight about it tomorrow morning, but tonight, please, can I just have you one more time without a fight?"

Jared kisses him back harder then, and it's not long before they're in Jared's bedroom, bodies tangled together they way they have nearly every night since they started. They way they never will again.

They fuck slower than they usually do, with Jared's eyes locked on Jensen's almost without interruption. It's better, in a way, than it has been, though Jensen's not human enough to really understand why. He feels closer to Jared than he has before, and the connection is almost something worth dying for. Jensen would die gladly if it just didn't mean giving Jared up, too.

When he finishes he watches the black ink oozing out over Jared's flat stomach, pooling on his torso, like it has so many times before. He gets the strangest urge to drag his fingers through the mess, write his name on Jared even though he knows it'll have to be cleaned off.

“I’ll get a towel,” Jensen says, rising from the bed.

He returns in a few seconds and bends over Jared, preparing to wipe the ink away. But Jared takes Jensen’s wrist in his hand, stopping it forcefully before the towel touches his skin. “No, don’t—don’t wash it off, Jen.”

Jensen laughs, letting the cloth drop. “It’s going to stain you,” he says.

“I know,” Jared replies, giving Jensen a weak smile and brushing his fingers through Jensen’s hair. “I want it to. I want to see it every day. I want to think of you every time I look in the mirror.”

He wants to remember Jensen, even though in a few hours Jensen will be gone, and his memory will be nothing but another loss. Jared wants to keep him locked away in his mind and in his heart, just like he does with his family, and Jensen—Jensen understands. It’s a terrifying realization, but the idea of Jared wanting to let him go seems almost as unendurable as the thought of letting Jared go.

Jensen feels an ache then. An ache, no. That word could never be strong enough to describe this. If Jensen had a heart and it broke, the edges could not cut like this. Jensen would pierce his skin if he touched these shards; he’d die if he fell on them, and suddenly he understands what he couldn’t before. He yearns for the indifferent forgetfulness of the Engelons, but he knows, like Jared, he will hold this perfect, terrible moment in his memory no matter how sharp the pangs. He doesn’t want to forget this, not even to spare himself the agony he knows he’ll be in when he wakes up without Jared beside him tomorrow.

He’ll let his former kin take him, kill him, make him lose the planet he’s fallen in love with, but his one solace is this: he knows they won’t take the memory of Jared away from him. They’ll think it’s a punishment, a form of torture. And it will be, but Jensen would rather die in agony than forget this human and all the irrational kindness he has offered Jensen.

Jensen stares at Jared in horror for a long second before he begins to feel a stinging in the corner of his eyes, the burning spreading quickly. Jared sits up, almost laughing as he soothes his fingers over Jensen’s face, and Jensen doesn’t understand what’s happening until Jared says, “Shh, no. Jensen, you can’t cry. You’ll lose water. C’mon, you have to stop that.”

“I—I can’t.” Jensen reaches up and feels the water collecting on his fingertips as it slips down his cheeks. “I can’t help it. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Jared starts crying then, too, but he’s still laughing. “You stupid alien,” he says, dragging Jensen down and kissing his face all over, first where there’s water, then the rest of him, and finally his lips in three or four quick, greedy kisses. “I love you, Jensen. I love you so much. You stupid idiot, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Jensen answers. He gives Jared a smile that won’t stay put on his face, wavering between happy and sad like waves shifting on sand. “So much I’m drowning in it. That’s what it means, right? When it’s bad. When there’s too much and it’s crushing you and you can’t breathe. This is drowning?”

“Yes,” Jared says softly, wrapping his hand around Jensen’s head and drawing him down to rest against his chest. “Yes, this is drowning.”

"I don't want to drown anymore, Jared," Jensen whispers.

Jared squeezes Jensen then, hard, but not in a way that hurts. It’s another gesture Jensen doesn’t understand, and he will never have the chance to learn now. "I won't let you drown," he promises, but it's an empty promise. There's no saving Jensen from the river, not this time.

"What if you just don't go?" Jared asks after a long silence. "If they could kill us all without destroying the planet they want to live on in the process, they would have done it already, Jensen. They might be bluffing."

Jensen licks his lips and hides his face against Jared's chest. The truth is, he knows they can't burn this planet yet, and if they could, they still wouldn't have enough time to find another planet with water before their stores run out. Even if they could, Engelons would never kill a planet as rich in water as this one. They only sent him the message to get a point across. They want him back, they want to punish him and prevent him from sharing any more sensitive information, and maybe they can't kill the whole species Jensen's fallen in love with, but they can certainly kill the one.

It would be easy and fun for them to drink Jared dry, or raze the farm Jensen has begun to think of as his home while he sleeps contentedly in Jared's arms. Jensen won't let that happen.

"I know what they're capable of, Jared," Jensen tells him. "It would be selfish of us to refuse them. We would get people hurt. Good people, not just—"

"You are a good person," Jared tells him. "I know you don't believe it. But you are."

Jensen laughs dismissively. "I'm not even a person, let alone a good one."

"You're right. You're not. You're better than a good person. You're better than most of the people I've ever met."

"I'm still not—"

"Well, you're certainly not one of them," Jared says heatedly.

Jensen lifts his head to see Jared's expression, to try and gauge if he's really upset with Jensen or just with the situation in general. Jared's eyes are still wide and glossy, and his lips tremble as he puts a hand on Jensen's cheek and tries to smile.

"You're not human, and you're not Engelon. You're something else entirely, Jensen. You're exactly you, and I like that. Whatever you are, you're my favorite thing."

Jensen smiles weakly and leans up, giving Jared a gentle kiss. He pulls away, turning his face and letting out a defeated sigh against Jared's neck. "I want to stay with you. You know that. But what would I be if I did? What would it make me if I was someone who lets others die—who knows how many others—just because I want to stay?"

"A monster," Jared answers. "It would make us both monsters."

Jensen nods. "I just got finished being one, Jared. Thanks to you. I'm not going to let us ruin it."

Those are the last words they speak to each other. Jensen wakes up first the next day, presses a brief kiss to Jared's mouth, whispering goodbye. With only Sadie at his side, Jensen slips out into the still, dark morning. He knows where to go. The others are already waiting for him.

It doesn't matter much to him by the time they take him. His world ended half an hour ago, when he left Jared to grieve by himself on that big, dead ranch. Whatever comes now, the death they deliver as his punishment, he welcomes it.

He has nothing left to lose.

**JARED**

"I think you should probably slow down there."

"I'm drinking for two," Jared reminds Misha before attempting to take another sip from the bottle clutched in his fist.

Misha reaches out and stops him, pushing the whiskey down and away. "Come on, Jared. There's gotta be a better way to deal with this."

He mimes slits across both of his wrists and plays dead for a few seconds, laughing when he opens his eyes again and meets Misha's concerned gaze. "If I wasn't such a fucking coward." This time his laugh is more of a giggle. "Think if I have enough whiskey I'll grow a pair?"

"I'm getting pretty concerned about it, yeah." Misha's still frowning across from him, giving him this look that makes him feel a little guilty, which is the last fucking thing he needs to feel right now.

"They don't feel anything," Jared mumbles. "Jensen told me. Nothing. What I wouldn't give to be one of them."

"I don't think you mean that," Misha insists, finally succeeding in wrestling the whiskey away from Jared.

Jared shrugs and lets him have it. It's not doing him much good, anyway. "I didn't ask you."

"There's gotta be something else we can do to help him," Misha says.

Jared presses the palms of his hands into his closed eyelids to keep himself from crying and lets out a nasty bark of laughter instead. "He certainly didn't seem to think so."

"Well, I don't think he was trying very hard to find a way out of it, to be honest, Jared. From what you've told me, it sounds like he just wanted to do whatever he could to save you." Misha gives him a scolding look. "Which is a little more than I can say for you right now."

"How am I supposed to save him?" Jared asks. "He's on a fucking invisible spaceship full of aliens that are hell bent on torturing him. Best case scenario we blow that thing up before they descend on us, which means he's toast, too. He didn't give me a chance to help him when I stood a chance. Now what am I supposed to do? Even if I could get to him, how would I get him out?"

"Let's start with the basics. Do you at least know how to kill one?"

Jared gives the whiskey Misha stole from him a sideways glance. "Alcohol."

"You don't need more fucking alcohol, man," Misha snaps. "Will you focus?"

"No, I mean—it might have just been Jensen. But, man, he had a sip of beer once and didn’t even swallow it and spent the next day comatose. It scared the shit out of me."

"Okay, that's a start."

Jared frowns. "Not really. Means we can kill one if it beams down to Earth and trips onto our path. They won't bring him back down here, Misha. So, it's not a fucking start. We've got nothing."

"If we could just get on the ship—"

"Not possible either," Jared says. He's getting pretty annoyed with Misha acting as if Jared hasn't even thought about this. He spent a full day trying to find a workable solution before he accepted that he's failed again. "Jensen told me. There's only one way to get beamed up to the ship unless someone sends the beam down for you, and that's if you know where to go and you have to have…"

He stops, his eyes widening as it hits him. "You have to…"

"What?" Misha demands. "What do you have to have?"

He looks down at himself and speaks slowly as he lifts the bottom of his shirt. "You have to have their ink."

Misha stares at the black spot on his torso and after about half a minute, a sly smile takes over his face. "Are you getting a really bad idea right now, Jared?"

"If I was, would I be right to assume you'd help me out?"

Misha laughs. "Go home and sober up. I'll head to the lab and check the data I collected, see if the alcohol weakness looks like an allergy only he had or something the whole species might share."

"Yeah," Jared agrees, nodding his head. It's already feeling clearer, but he knows Misha's right. They need at least some semblance of a plan before they try anything. He calls a cab back to Misha's, where he's been staying since he woke up and found Jensen missing, and begins to think through how best to not get himself killed.

_______________________________________________________________

It takes all of twenty minutes for Jared to get caught. Not that that's surprising. He'd been expecting this, so it's almost with an air of amusement that he surrenders and lets the two Engelon guards that apprehend him wrap a tentacle around each of his arms and drag him to the ship's bridge.

The deposit him roughly at the foot—or, well, tentacle—of another Engelon, and Jared looks up from the floor to find it watching him.

"Stand, human," it says.

Its voice is surprisingly soft, musical, with an airy quality. He thinks of wind chimes and it's almost a nice thought, except that he's surrounded by psychopathic aliens.

"You the boss here?"

"We have no boss," it tells him. "I am simply the voice."

Jared thinks the voice is female, not just because she sounds that way, but from looking at her, too. The Engelons both are and are not what Jared was expecting. They're not as chaotic as he pictured when Jensen described them. He imagined them as big, tangled balls of snaky limbs, but there's no chaos to them, and the limbs that spread out around them seem ordered to the point of elegance.

He thinks they might all look the same to him if he hadn’t spent so much time with Jensen, but he can distinguish differences. They share the translucent white skin, shifting into every color of the rainbow when it hits the light, that had made Jensen's tentacles so beautiful to him, and they seem to be about the same size and shape, though some are taller than others, and Jared figures their bodies may vary, too, to someone who doesn't just look at them and see a bunch of tentacles. They all have different markings—some share the reddish brown dots Jared had teased Jensen about, because they'd looked like freckles on his tentacles, while others have stripes or bigger spots or various combinations.

The one standing in front of him seems to stand taller than the rest, though that may just be the gravitas. Her markings give off different colored ultraviolet glows. Despite everything, he sees enough of what made Jensen Engelon in her to realize that she must be a very great beauty. But it's a cruel beauty, and Jared doesn't want anything to do with it.

They have faces. Jared can't read them for the life of him, but they're there. So he squares his gaze with hers, big red eyes blinking vertically and then horizontal.

"Before we kill you, tell me how you got on board this ship."

"I need to talk to whoever's in charge. I've got a deal I'd like to make."

"I told you, we have no such hierarchy. We are all as one here."

Which is clearly a load of shit, because those guards had brought Jared here for her to decide what to do. For some reason, he thinks of _Animal Farm_ and can't help a snicker.

"Great, well, then, I'll just make the deal with you and we can assume everybody agreed."

The sound she makes isn't a laugh, not really, but Jared thinks that's probably what it's supposed to be. He doesn't need to be able to read her face to know she's smiling—he can hear it sharp and clear.

"There won't be any deal, human. You will tell me how you boarded this vessel and then I will kill you."

"I bring an offer for peace from the planet Earth," Jared continues, unperturbed. "We may be willing to let you live."

The voice turns to look around, like she actually can't believe how stupid Jared is and needs to confirm it with the rest of her kin.

"Guards, seize him and feel free to drink him," she says.

Jared holds his hands out before they get a chance. "Okay," he says. He lifts his shirt slowly to reveal the stain on his stomach. "Okay, I'm cooperating."

The response to Jared's disclosure is hushed, like they wouldn't have thought of it on their own, but now it's obvious. "He shared our ink with you," she says angrily. "You must be the human he's dying for."

Jared does his best not to react to that. "I want him back, and I want you to promise not to attack. In exchange, we will allow you to leave with a good supply of water. Enough to carry you to another planet."

"We will have all of your water, Earthling, and he will die here. You have nothing to bargain that we do not intend to take without your help."

"But it'll be easier this way," Jared implores. "Peaceful. No one has to die, so why should they?"

"Why not?" she responds. "Your species are even more foolish than our research indicated."

Jared just hardly manages to contain his smile. They're taking the bait. Now all he has to do is reel them in. "Please, I brought you gifts as a token of our goodwill."

He reaches into his bag and pulls out the first of many water bottles and extends it out toward the voice. Her eyes immediately flash with hunger, and Jared knows he's hit a bull's eye.

"The human has brought us water as a sign of his subservience, sisters and brothers." Even Jared can see the smile when she turns on him. All her dignity and poise has been replaced by desperate greed; she's practically salivating. "How much did you bring?"

"Enough for everyone on this bridge, at least, maybe a bottle and a half per Engelon." He makes a stern face. "Just make sure you don't take all of it. At least two of those are for Jensen. I know he'll need it."

He's whacked unceremoniously off his feet by a tentacle as she seizes the heavy bag he's carrying. Sure as anything, every bottle in the bag has been swiped up and opened within seconds.

He keeps on protesting, begging them not to drink it all, to leave one for his Engelon, and that only spurs them to drink faster, trying to upset him. He calls out in horror one last time before the first genuine shout of pain breaks out, and Jared stands up, dusting himself off. "On second thought, you guys can have it all. Jensen's not a big fan of vodka."

The voice lead the other Engelons in this as in everything, draining the entire bottle as soon as she got a chance to smell the water inside, so she falls first. Luckily, the others didn't wait to make sure it was safe before chugging their own bottles. All that gluttony and not a single Engelon with enough imagination to suspect Jared has been lying since the moment he opened his mouth.

She collapses at his feet, her tentacles wrapping around his legs weakly, trying to shake him. "What—?" she says, clutching where her throat must be under all those limbs. "What—?"

Jared gives her a cold smile and shakes her off as easy as if she was a kitten. He watches the aliens on the bridge dying in a heap around her and bends down so he's on level with her. Her big red eyes are glued to him, and the unmitigated fear there almost makes him feel pity for her.

Then he remembers what she and the rest of these monsters have done—to Jensen, to his family, to whole planets of innocent creatures—and he feels so much ugly hatred that he's ashamed. But it feels good, too.

"I never intended to make peace with you," he tells her, reaching out and stroking his hand through tentacles in a mockery of tenderness. "You should have just let me keep him."

He thinks for a moment of killing her right then and there, putting her out of her misery, but he decides he'd rather get to rescuing Jensen and let the vodka do its work. They deserve to die slow.

Hopping over bodies, Jared finds the control deck and lets out a sigh of relief. He'd worried it would be too complicated to carry out the next phase of his and Misha's slightly crazy plan, but there are only about ten buttons to parse through, and Jared manages to activate the beam after five failed attempts. Misha appears nine minutes later, probably having come from the same place Jared did when he found the beam and managed to fool it into pulling him on board.

Misha looks around the bridge and gives Jared a nostalgic smile. "This place looks just like our dorm room junior year. Only, you know, it's aliens that are passed out on the floor instead of Chads."

"You brought more vodka?"

"I don't have a Russian name for nothing," Misha tells him, holding up two duffels with each hand. They make clinking sounds as they jerk with the movement.

"I have to—"

"Go find Jensen," Misha says with a knowing turn to his lips. "I know."

"You'll be alright?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Do I look like a fortune teller to you?"

"Just stay out of trouble until we get back. Try to locate him, and if I'm going in the wrong direction, let me know. I wouldn't leave you alone except—"

"It's okay, Jared. Go get your boy. Vicki would do the same for me."

Jared raises an eyebrow, and Misha ducks his head, laughing. "I would have said I'd do the same for her, but let's face it, if one of us was going to be the damsel in distress."

Jared laughs and is about to set out running, but Misha calls him back.

"Hold on, take one of these." Misha digs into his bag and pulls out a Super Soaker, like the ones Jared and Jeff used to torment each other with when they were kids.

"Don't tell me," he says as he accepts the weapon.

Misha preens. "Chock full of undiluted alcohol. Go forth and prosper."

"I could kiss you," Jared says, without thinking about who he's talking to.

Misha waggles his eyebrows and gives Jared a thumbs up. "I'll talk to the Mrs. about her feelings on foursomes. I expect good things."

Jared sets off through the first door he finds and starts walking where he thinks he's least likely to be spotted until Misha can radio him directions on where to go.

_______________________________________________________________

This time, when guards catch him, he's able to get the upper hand. He shoots one with his water gun and lets the other watch in confused horror as his comrade falls clutching where the alcohol is burning through its limbs.

"It's not a good way to go," he tells the remaining guard, kicking at the dying body next to him to help make his point.

It whimpers, and the other Engelon turns purple eyes on him. Jared recognizes respect in its gaze. "They told us you were kind creatures."

"They never lost something they love. Interesting what that can do to a human." He lifts the gun and points it. "Now, I'm gonna ask this once, and you're gonna answer, and I'll let you live for being such a good boy, because I'm just _kind_ like that. Where is Jensen?"

"The traitor?" the alien asks.

Jared nods. Whatever. He's not about to split hairs.

"In the prison cells, on block seven."

Jared radios Misha. "Did you get that?"

"Yessir," Misha replies. "Finding it now."

"Well then, I guess I don't need you anymore," Jared tells the guard. "But I don't really need you letting anyone know I'm coming, either."

He shoots and the thing collapses, murmuring something about how Jared had promised.

Jared can't help laughing as he passes it. "You guys really need to figure out lying."

He only runs into one more Engelon before he reaches the prison cells, and he makes quick work of it, conscious of the fact that these aliens have at least some degree of ability to communicate with each other telepathically and hoping to kill it before it gets a chance to make things more complicated. Jared knows they've probably already started to warn each other—the vodka didn't work as quickly as it could have on the bridge, and there were too many of them to hope no one managed to send out an S.O.S. before dying.

Still, he'll take as much secrecy about where he is and where he intends to go as possible.

There are five Engelons waiting for him at the door to the prison, but Jared doesn't have time to waste on them. He pumps his gun quickly and takes them all out in one long spray, making sure to get each of them two or three times in different places. Their cries of agony are bound to bring more, and Jared's gun is only about two-thirds full now. He hopes that'll be enough. There's no knowing what state Jensen will be in when he finally rescues him—assuming it's not too late—and the aliens will be sure to be coming after him with more fury now. He's going to need a lot more on his return to the bridge than he needed coming here.

Jared pushes all of those thoughts away and just presses on. If he runs out, he runs out, he'll deal with it then. For now, he just needs to get Jensen.

As soon as he steps into the prison cell, he wishes he could get out. Jensen is hanging limply in a corner, chained by the neck. It's clear he hasn't had water since he got here, and his body is collapsing, melting into its original form but stubbornly trying to stay human at the same time. His legs have turned into two awkward tentacle-like squiggles, as have his hands, and when he sees Jared, he turns away as if against a wave of pain.

He whimpers, but says nothing.

"Jensen," Jared cries out, running to free him. As soon as he's unhooked the chain that was propping Jensen up, he collapses into Jared's arms. "Jensen."

"Please don't," he begs, and Jared's throat aches in sympathy just hearing how raw his voice is. "Not this. Don't do this."

"Jen, it's me. I'm here to rescue you, okay?"

"Water," he pleads. "So thirsty."

Jared licks his lips. "I brought you water," Jared promises. He takes the tentacles where Jensen's hands should be and presses them against his neck. "Drink."

Jensen shakes his head. "Not like. Not like that."

"It was the only way. They would have taken it if I'd brought a container," Jared tells him, brushing his hand over Jensen's face. "It's okay, I drank extra for you."

"Won't be able to stop," Jensen says. "Too thirsty."

"No, I know you can do it. Just drink enough to be okay walking and that'll be it." He smiles and presses a kiss to Jensen's forehead. "C'mon, baby. I know you can do it."

"Can't. Won't." He whimpers when Jared presses the limbs tighter against his skin. He's a starving man, and Jared knows he won't be able to fight the urge for long. "I don't wanna be a parasite."

He lets out a shaky laugh. "Fuck, Jensen. Of all the things I ever said to you, don't let that be the one thing that sticks."

"I'll kill you," he says, looking up at Jared with his green eyes bigger than they used to be. Jared realizes that's a part of him returning to his original form, too, and he holds the gaze with some effort.

"Better that than I try to live without you anymore." Jared gives Jensen his own set of puppy eyes. "I risked my life to come up here, because I would rather die with you than live the other way. So you can drink me dry and I won't hate you for it. But I know you won't. I _know_ you can stop yourself. You're not like them."

Jensen hesitates a little longer, but Jared can see him wavering. He hears something out in the hall and knows they only have so long before he needs to be ready to shoot whatever comes through that door. "Jensen, please. I'm not leaving without you. Drink before they get here and we both die anyway."

The green eyes close, like Jensen can't bear to watch what he's about to do, and Jared feels the suction cups on his throat begin to work at him. It's uncomfortable, making his mouth go dry and sticky and his head feel light. It goes on for nearly a minute, and Jared realizes that he's getting too tired to fight his way back to the bridge.

"Jensen, that's—please tell me you've had enough."

Jensen opens his eyes then. They're a darker shade of green than he's ever seen, and Jared realizes he doesn't want to stop.

"Jensen. Jensen, please. Stop. Stop now."

It feels like his skin is being ripped off when Jensen finally detaches himself, yanking his limb away and pushing Jared roughly so he's out of reach.

"Jared," Jensen says. His voice is stronger now, clearer, and that gives Jared some hope. At least until he tries to stand and slips, too tired to hold himself. "Oh god, no, no. Jared, no."

"It's okay," Jared says, closing his eyes. He tries to swallow, but he can't manage enough saliva. "I'm okay."

With more effort, Jared braces himself, scrambling to grab the water gun before he stands. It feels unbearably heavy now, and his muscles ache like he hasn't used them in years.

But he has to keep going. He has to get Jensen back to Misha. "Can you walk yet?"

Jensen shakes his head, sitting up against a nearby wall. "It'll take time for the water to fix me," he says. "Just go without me."

"Yeah, right," Jared tells him. "I came here for you, I'm not leaving you."

"Leave me," he says when Jared stoops to wrap one of Jensen's arms around his shoulders. "Please, I—I made you too weak. We'll never get out, not both of us. Oh god, Jared, I couldn't help it."

"Shh," he says. "I need to concentrate on walking, so if you see someone I should shoot, you need to tell me, okay?"

Jensen sees that he's got no choice here, so he nods, and Jared lifts him. They begin to hobble their way back to the bridge.

"Aw, honey," Misha says when they finally find the bridge and Jared carries Jensen up to the control panel. "You brought me a present."

"Water supply," Jared says, as desperate for his own sake as Jensen's. "Please tell me you found it."

"I'm just that good," Misha says. He looks from Jared to Jensen and back again. "How'd you get in Mojave desert condition?"

"He was dying," Jared explains. "He needed—"

"Got it," Misha says, summing up the situation. He digs into his bag for another water gun and says, "I guess I get to be the badass first person shooter this time. Follow me."

The ship's water is stored on a tank mercifully close to the bridge. Misha even managed to find a direct route that included an elevator, which is a good thing, because Jared probably couldn't have managed stairs, even though he's only carrying Jensen now that Misha has control of weapons.

"How do we get into it?" Jared asks when they arrive.

"Well, first thing's first. You two, grab a drink." He gestures to containers and what looks like a faucet, and Jared doesn't need to be told twice. The containers are pretty big, maybe ten gallons, so Jared only fills one for the two of them. No way can he carry a full one twice.

He dips his hands in and drinks four or five handfuls before he turns to Jensen and starts scooping water into Jensen's mouth. Jensen visibly relaxes after the first few, so Jared keeps going for a little while, then begins to rub Jensen down, spreading water all over his dry skin, but especially his hands and legs. He's gonna need full control of those, whether they stay tentacles or not.

Finally, Jensen has the energy and wherewithal to curl over the container himself, dunking his head in. Jared leaves him to it and walks over to Misha.

"Any bright ideas?"

"I was thinking we could poison the water supply, but that would take way more alcohol than we've got. It'll get diluted in this much. Maybe give them a tummy ache, but that'll only make them more desperate to strike at Earth faster."

"Plan B?" Jared asks.

"Plan B was to spill it. Break the tank and leave them with no food source, then set the ship on auto-pilot away from Earth. That might be enough of a derailment that they'd starve before making it back, but I can't promise it, and that tank is too well built to break before they catch up to us. We can't fight all the aliens on this ship, no matter how much alcohol we have."

"Burn it!"

Misha and Jared both turn to look at Jensen. Jensen is still sitting on the floor, but he looks to be in better condition. His hair is wet from dunking, but his expression is dead serious.

"Alcohol burns, right?"

Misha gives Jensen a delighted look. "Yes, very well."

"Even if the fire doesn't get everyone, the smoke will. That's one gas I guarantee we can't breathe. Now burn this fucking ship and let's get out of here."

"I've always thought you had good taste in men," Misha says, pointing to Jensen. "But that one's a keeper."

_______________________________________________________________

They beam Jensen down first, because the fumes will be just as deadly to him as the Engelons they _are_ trying to kill, and then Jared gets to work lacing the ship with trails of alcohol as Misha fiddles with the controls.

It takes him about 20 minutes and one entire Super Soaker full of close calls to cover enough of the ship that he's sure it'll go down once it's lit, but he finds Misha whistling cheerfully at control when he returns.

"I've set the ship to pilot toward Mars, so when the giant, flaming spaceship crashes, it doesn't smack into Earth."

"Good job," Jared tells him, smacking him on the back. "You ready to beam down?"

"Indubitably," Misha says. He fishes into his pocket for a box of matches. "You want the honor, or should I?"

"You head home, Misha," Jared says with a grin. "I would very much like to do this one."

Misha nods, getting a head start to the entrance while Jared activates the auto-pilot Misha programmed and takes a deep breath of clean air. Then Jared strikes seven matches at once and drops them to the ground. 

The flames immediately begin to spread out and Jared takes off, sprinting to safety. He's only a few steps ahead of the blaze, but it's enough. About ten feet from the ground, the beam drops him suddenly, and Jared knows it means the ship has sailed too far out of range to hold the beam steady.

He waves goodbye to the invisible ship pulling out of Earth's atmosphere and turns to look at his friends.

"I'm getting too old for this shit," Misha says, letting himself fall back onto the grass as he catches his breath.

Jared and Jensen just laugh, relief and exhaustion making their amusement border on maniacal.

They all end up back on Jared's farm about an hour later, after they had a chance to recuperate and limp their tired asses back. Misha goes to bed early, insisting that being a superhero is very tiring work, and Jared waves him off, happy to have Jensen to himself.

Jensen sits out on the porch, quieter than usual. Introspective. Not that Jared blames him—he's had a pretty stressful few days. He's staring up at the stars with an expression Jared can't read on his face, and Jared's heart catches trying to imagine what Jensen's feeling right now.

"Are you okay?" he asks, taking a seat next to Jensen and handing him a jug of water. Jensen's still not 100% physically speaking, but he accepts the drink with a grateful smile and nods.

"I feel a lot better, Jared." He looks down at the glass and smiles. "I cannot believe that suicide mission actually worked. I'll kill you if you ever pull a stunt like that again."

Jared laughs. "As long as you're around to do the killing, I'm cool with it."

Jensen frowns, and Jared realizes that probably wasn't the best joke to make right now, considering. Jensen reaches out, his fingers ghosting over the purple marks Jared knows are on his neck, shaking his head sadly. "Fuck, Jared."

Jared takes Jensen's hand away from his throat and wraps his fingers around it, squeezing. "I'm good, Jensen. I'm fine. I knew you could do it."

"You have no idea how much I wanted to keep going," he admits, looking down at his feet. "I'm always gonna be a monster, aren't I?"

"My monster," Jared teases. He bumps his shoulder with Jensen's. "I, uh. I know how you feel. On that score at least. I—I liked hurting them. I never thought I could be that spiteful, but I hated them so much."

"You sound ashamed," Jensen observes, turning to look at him more closely. "There's nothing shameful about what you did."

"I killed—a lot."

"Of monsters. If anything ever deserved to die, it was them. They got better than they deserved."

Jared winces. "They were your family once. You're not even a little upset by what happened to them?"

Jensen looks down at his hands. "They told me you were dead. When they were torturing me, trying to get me to betray humans. They kept saying 'what does it matter anymore, the one you care about is dust now, I killed him myself.'" Jensen's voice thickens, but he keeps pushing. "I begged them to kill me, too. They wouldn't agree to it unless I sold humanity out first. And when I refused, they left me to starve." 

Jared can feel his face dropping, but he reaches out to rub Jensen's thigh supportively.

"That wasn't the worst of it," he whispers.

"What could be worse?"

Jensen looks at him for a long time. "One of them offered to wipe my memory if I agreed to betray you. So I wouldn't remember I'd hurt you. So I wouldn't remember you at all. They tried to bribe me with that." He wipes a hand over his mouth, and Jared can see how ashamed he is. "I can't believe I offered that to you. How could I even make you imagine losing your family like that?" He shudders. "Just the thought of it made me feel…"

He kicks the ground, so Jared pulls him in, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. "It's okay, Jensen. Everything's okay now."

"I know. And I'm glad." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Jared. I am. A part of me wishes it was different. But I'm one of them in that way at least. I'm never going to feel this like you think I should. I'll never be sad they're gone."

"Let's go in, huh?" Jared makes himself smile, and Jensen looks at him like he can't believe Jared still wants him. But he's here, and he's safe. They both are. The smile turns from forced to a genuine kind of thing that makes him ache. "When was the last time you ate?"

Jensen grabs him and kisses him so hard it might just leave a bruise. His hand slides down, and he traces his fingers up inside of Jared's shirt, over the black mark he left and all the way to Jared's heart. He presses his palm there to feel Jared's heartbeat, and Jared grins.

He figures this was worth a few bruises.

**The End.**


End file.
